


Beneath the Bloody Moon

by DanyellaSkylerSilverfire, notbug (KageKashu)



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, F/M, Genderbending, M/M, Name Changes, Other, Rating May Change, Tags May Change, Temporary gender changes, Time Travel, Warnings May Change, agender Kakashi, allusions to past noncon, friendly reminder that this isn't meant to be taken seriously, possible shenanigans, these two are idiots, vague genderqueer themes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-20
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-03-24 21:40:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 35,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3785212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DanyellaSkylerSilverfire/pseuds/DanyellaSkylerSilverfire, https://archiveofourown.org/users/KageKashu/pseuds/notbug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Obito was intelligent enough to see how the battle with Kaguya was going to end, and decided that it wasn't good enough. Of course, not everything went exactly as he planned...</p><p>(Edit 5/19: title changed from "Bloody Moon")</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Warning, this will get weirder and weirder pretty fast, and there's a touch (getting touchier as it goes) of crack to it.

Obito laid on his back and stared into the sky. The landscape around him was vastly different than it had been, minutes before, but he wasn't sure that he dared inspect it properly. On some level, he was terrified that he had failed, that after everything, the three men he had meant to save were dead and all he had to show for it was chakra exhaustion. 

A tiny, sniffling cry snapped him from his contemplation of the clouds, and somehow, he forced himself to move. He rolled over, onto his side and found himself face to face with... a much smaller face. A chubby, infant's face with baby blue eyes and surrounded with soft, flyaway black hair. Another, louder cry caused him to look further. There was another baby, this one with dark, but definitely brown, reddish-brown, hair. 

What was this? It didn't make any sense! Where did the babies come from, and where were Naruto and Sasuke? Where was Kakashi? 

He reached out with his senses, searching for the other men's chakras, and... 

"Oh no," he said. Then with a little more feeling - " _Oh noooo..._ It can't be! Oh _god_ , I fucked up. I fucked up so bad..." 

Somehow, he had turned the two greatest weapons against Kaguya... into infants. And Kakashi... He couldn't sense him at all! Or... could he? His senses were all screwed up. 

The only thing that seemed to keep circumstances from being a total clusterfuck was the fact that the other part of what he had been trying seemed to have succeeded. Now, other than figuring out how to take care of babies with kage-level chakra, he needed to find out just how far back he had managed to send them. 

The blue-eyed infant that he suspected was Sasuke gurgled at him, and he flinched. He had no idea what to do with infants. Frankly, they frightened him. They were so delicate, and he really didn't know what to do with them. 

He hadn't even had to babysit anything younger than four back when he was doing D ranks - Really, who would trust Kakashi with a toddler, much less an infant? And it wasn't like his own clan trusted him to babysit since he was eight. He lost five toddlers that day, which still seemed kind of strange, as he had only been meant to watch two. (On some level, he wondered why they had trusted an eight year old with toddlers to begin with...) He still had no idea how he had done it. The ineptitude of it was both impressive and baffling. 

The point was, he knew nothing about infants. What he did know could be summed up similarly in the care of a pet. You feed them, wash them, and try to keep them warm and entertained. Speaking of washing... 

His nose flared at a foul scent. One of them had soiled themselves and the ground beneath them, as the babies were naked. Right... He needed to somehow clothe them. First, he had better wash Naruto. 

* * *

Two days later, Obito gave up. He lay flat on his back again, staring up, this time, at the branches of a tree, where the ever crawling Naruto clung to the underside of a branch. Obito's hair reeked of vomit, and next to him, little Sasuke sat with a bug in his mouth, it's tiny legs wiggling between his lips. It was probably poisonous. The last two dozen had been. 

"We're all going to die," he said, numbly. "You two will be fine. You'll reincarnate immediately. Me? I'll probably go to Hell, if I'm not there already." Above him, Naruto slipped, and somehow, he caught himself. The mad little thing was giggling wildly, hanging from the branch with one arm. Obito didn't care. Five minutes ago, he might have, but now? He had given up. There was no way these children would survive his care, and there was no way he would survive caring for them. 

One of Sasuke's hands patted at his face, searching for Obito's mouth. "Stop that. I don't want a bug." But he didn't bother turning his head away. To his surprise, it wasn't a bug. It was a small handful of berries. He chewed thoughtfully for a moment, trying to identify the taste, which was remarkably familiar. 

When it clicked, he sat up, spitting the berries out viciously. "You little bastard!" he shouted between spitting. "Are you trying to kill me?" Nightshade. Where the fuck did he even find Nightshade? "That's it! I can't take it anymore! Kamui!" He snatched up the offending child and thrust him into the pocket dimension, then jumped up, catching the dangling Naruto and doing the same with him. 

He breathed heavily for a minute, realizing that now, the babies were gone, and he didn't have to watch them if they were gone. Sure, they were still in his pocket dimension, but... He didn't have to watch them! There was nothing there they could kill themselves with, so he could just leave them there for now. 

What approximated sanity in Obito's mind would eventually assert itself, and he would take them out, he knew, but for now, he was free. Free from their sounds and their smells, and the way they needed his constant supervision lest they kill themselves. 

He took off with a lighter heart, knowing that without having to juggle them, his day's travel would be much easier. It was true that he didn't need to travel the distance on foot, but it gave him the time to think, and to formulate plans - plans that would be adjusted as needed as soon as he knew the date. 

* * *


	2. WTF Happened Anyway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter Kakashi... from where? And also, some explanations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So far we're even with the whole change/don't change it thing.

Once it finally occurred to him that babies probably shouldn't be left unsupervised for so long, he had finally reached something resembling a well-trodden road. Steeling himself for whatever he might find, he slipped into the other dimension, only to falter immediately. 

Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn't this. 

Kakashi sat on the cool, grey ground, doddling one baby on his knee, while the other rested quietly against his shoulder. The Jounin's eyes were unamused and his hitai-ate dangled from the potentially sleeping child's hands. "It seems just days ago," he said, knee moving steadily enough to keep Naruto happy, "that we were enemies. Then we were fighting on the same side, and when we ought to have died... I'm not sure what happened. This." He gestured at the emptiness around them. Then he indicated the babies. "I woke up, and there were _these_... Either you did something, or the gods are telling me that it's time to breed. I hope it's the former. Not quite sure I have the fortitude to raise offspring." 

Well. At least he now knew what had happened to Kakashi. 

* * *

It was more difficult than expected, explaining the situation to the Copy-nin, but Kakashi was nothing if not an extremely apt pupil. It wasn't easy to explain what happened to Naruto and Sasuke, either. The infants' unmistakable chakra was the only thing that convinced him, in the end, that Obito hadn't made it all up in a fit of lunacy. "Maa..." Kakashi sighed, dragging his hand through his hair. "I would almost say this seems like more trouble than it's worth, and yet... Hmph. I can wait to hear the plans you're already making. At this point, I only want to know what the endgame is, and why we're in the past with my cute students turned into infants." 

"You know how it would have gone, don't you, Kakashi?" asked Obito, trying to soothe Naruto to sleep by rubbing his back. It seemed to be working, thankfully. Of the two of them, Naruto was definitely harder to keep calm. Sasuke, murderous habits aside, fell asleep the instant his head touched Kakashi's shoulder. "What would have happened, if we continued on that path? I hardly care that it would have meant my death - if that was all, I would go into it gratefully. We would have won, yes, and at great cost. Even that would be acceptable. And then..." Obito shook his head, scowling. "Kaguya would have been sealed away again, no longer a problem for... oh, as long as a thousand years, maybe more, maybe less. She would come back, eventually, and these two would have to fight her again. Maybe they won't win next time, if it goes so far." 

"You mean to kill her in this time," Kakashi concluded. "Can you?" 

"Perhaps. It depends solely on the amount of time we have. These two..." He glanced down at the child in his lap. Naruto slept on, oblivious to his observation. "If I have time, I'll train them appropriately." 

"If we don't?" 

Obito's eyes met Kakashi's. We. The man said "we". He felt something in his chest do a flip flop. "Then we find the Naruto and Sasuke of this time and train them." 

* * *

It turned out, Naruto and Sasuke couldn't even be alive yet. Kamui had sent them more than twenty years into the past. While Kakashi seemed pleased with this development, Obito couldn't help but feel apprehensive. The babies were too young to train, for all that they seemed to have perfect chakra control, and while he could go back to manipulating nations from behind the scenes, he rather thought that that would be unnecessary this time around. 

"Obito..." Kakashi's voice was soft, thoughtful. The man had stopped in the middle of the path, much to the irritation of his passengers. Sasuke flailed at the side of his face, making the angriest expression - or perhaps he was constipated, it was difficult to tell with infants - while Naruto chewed toothlessly at whatever his mouth could reach. In this instance, Kakashi's ear, which the Copy-nin failed to defend. "You have both eyes." Kakashi's tone had become ponderous. It was something that could have been mentioned earlier, yet for some reason, Kakashi hadn't. 

"So do you," Obito pointed out. He had made note of that before. He didn't think deeply on the fact that he could see clearly from both of his eyes as well - and that his left eye was, undoubtedly, his own, rather than one of the many he had used over the years. In fact... "Don't think about it," he advised, turning and hurrying down the path, away from his old friend. 

* * *

Contrarily, they both ended up thinking about it. In depth. They never had been good at following stupid orders. Or good advice. And once the subject had been breached, it weighed heavily on their minds. 

By the time evening rolled around, they had found themselves in a small town with a fairly decent inn, and Obito didn't want to deny himself the luxury of sleeping in a real bed. Besides, with proper seals up, they could have the budding _talk_ that threatened from the edge of Kakashi's covered lips. 

Kakashi's uncovered grey eye followed him as he went through the motions of setting up the seals. Much to his amusement, he found a trace of a paper seal hidden behind a painting, and moved to show Kakashi, who commented, "Sloppy. I almost hope they're dead, because that's the only excuse I can think of." 

The old seal still had a trace of chakra in it, and Obito weighed it in his mind. "Gennin," he said, and Kakashi snorted. "Mizu, probably. It could also be someone with a water affinity. But definitely a gennin." Technically, he could probably hunt the person down, but it would be pointless. Once his seal was complete - careful not to touch the remains of the old one - he turned to the other ninja and waited. 

Kakashi was silent for a long while, apparently deep in thought. When he finally spoke, he said, "What did you do to us?" His uncovered eye, alighting on Naruto and Sasuke, included them in the question. 

"I'm not sure," he replied, taking a seat next to Kakashi and reaching out to touch the soft spikey, auburn hair covering the tiny head that rested against Kakashi's thigh. "I have a theory, but... in order to know for certain, I would have to test our blood. As for these two..." He moved his other hand to touch Sasuke's softer, black locks. "I think I... forcibly reincarnated them. I remember thinking that the fight would have been so much easier if each had a little of the other in them, if they had been trained properly from the start... and then I thought I needed time to train them properly, to train out their bad habits. And then it occurred to me that the only way I could do that..." He shrugged. "They had too much potential, and in their case, good enough wasn't good enough. Their time as gennin, you were training the academy out of them." Obito made an aborted, frustrated motion with his hands. "According to the academy, _I_ was useless. Say what you will about Madara, he was an excellent teacher. If my potential had truly been so limited, it should have been impossible for even someone like Madara to bring out." 

"Maa..." Kakashi flopped backward on the bed, face scrunched up beneath his mask. "I rather thought that the academy hadn't treated those two right. Sakura thrived in that environment, but... even she could have been better, sooner." He sighed. "That doesn't explain what you think you did to us. Even if it's just a theory..." He left the sentence hanging. "...I think they are, essentially, their own children. Their chakra is still distinct, but physically..." He shrugged. 

"...they look more like Uchihas," Kakashi pointed out. "Even with the Uzumaki visible in Naruto..." 

"So I might have used myself... and maybe you too..? That's why I said I'd need to do a blood test." There was no visible sign of the Hatake blood, but that didn't mean anything. Unless that was where the moon pale skin came from, because Kakashi was paler than any Uchiha that Obito had ever known. And the Uchiha weren't exactly known for their dark complexions. 

"..." There was that pregnant silence again. Obito waited it out. "...and us?" 

"We're completely uninjured," said Obito. "One might even go so far as to say that we're at the peak of health. My scars..." He lifted his hand to the right side of his face. Once thick and prominent scarring was, while still unmistakable, much thinner, softer. He rolled his shoulders in another shrug. The scars along his body were just as affected. "Not gone, obviously, but better." 

Kakashi didn't answer. Not in words, anyway. He pushed up his hitai-ate, revealing his Sharingan. It wasn't Obito's anymore - it couldn't be, because the eye in his own left socket was definitely his own eye - and the thought had his heart flip flopping again. The scarring around the eye was more subtle than it had been, and unthinkingly, Obito reached out and pulled Kakashi's mask down. The offended look on the other ninja's face was so humorous that Obito couldn't stop the laugh that bubbled up. Kakashi lazily swung a fist at him before allowing his hand to drop back onto his stomach. "Asshole," he grumbled. 

"We need new identities. All four of us. My name isn't as distinct as yours, 'Scarecrow', but between your hair, your name, and your mask, something needs to change - maybe all of it. I can go by Tobi again," he said. At least it would be something he was used to. "Naruto and Sasuke can be Asura and Indara, because why not? I'll even let you pick your own name." 

"Maaa... how kind of you," Kakashi sighed, and let the pause drag out in a habit that was quickly going to grow annoying. "Enoki." 

"Enoki?" Tobi asked, just to be sure. 

"Yeah." Kakashi nodded. "Enoki." 

"You're weird," Tobi replied. Enoki - and that was going to take some getting used to - closed his eyes, not bothering to pull the mask back up, and flipped him off. 

* * *

OMAKE

* * *

(or it could have gone a little more like this...) 

Laying on his back and pretending that the world didn't exist was a common pastime for Obito lately. Dealing so closely with _people_ was something that he found himself incapable of, anymore. Actually, he amended internally, refusing to look at Kakashi, who was doing _something_ with the babies, it was more like he was incapable of enjoying it. 

Kakashi was a born introvert, but Obito had learned to be one. The babies exhausted him. They frustrated him. He was also pretty sure that they were evil, but he had no proof of that... yet. 

So while Kakashi did whatever it was he was doing - which, by the sounds he heard was keeping the infants well entertained - Obito took his half hour break seriously. After either of them did a chore such as feeding or bathing the babies, they got an actual, proper break. Since Obito had fed them... and ugh. As if having to feed them wasn't bad enough, it turns out that babies puke. A lot. Usually just when you think you're safe. Kakashi had just watched in that amused way of his, before taking over without complaint. As if their situation weren't weird enough. 

Kakashi handling a baby, and even seeming to enjoy it? Too weird. Even weirder, the babies seemed to actively like Kakashi, although that was just as likely because, on some level, they remembered him. If they remembered Obito, they certainly didn't seem to like him. Of course, he was assuming that Sasuke was aware that he was trying to make Obito eat poisonous things. Naruto, on the other hand, had proven many times over that he was incapable of holding onto hatred. Anger, sure. Dislike, distrust, yeah, he could do that. Hate? No. It would be admirable, if it weren't so surreal. 

Exactly thirty minutes after his break began, Kakashi spoke up. "Blood test." 

"Well, that was random," Obito replied, turning ever so slightly in Kakashi and the infants' direction. He couldn't see them, but he didn't really want to. 

"Not as much as it sounds," Kakashi sighed. "They look wrong. The chakra is the same, but..." 

Obito rolled his eyes. Of course they looked wrong. They were babies. "Did you expect them to look the same?" he asked sarcastically. 

Kakashi sighed again, a deeper sound than the last, though muffled by his mask. "Naruto didn't have red hair at this age." 

...that made sense. "So?" 

The next sound was more of a growl than a sigh. "Sasuke also looks different than he should." 

"He's a baby," Obito said, growing exasperated. "The only reason I can tell them apart is because of Naruto's hair! All babies have pudgy, smushed faces!" And that might have contributed to the incident when he was eight. 

"And what will they look like at sixteen?" asked Kakashi. Then, insistently, he said, " _Look._ " 

... Kakashi still, consistently, managed to surprise him. What the man was trying to show him was merely an optical type illusion, similar to a henge, that had been cast on Sasuke and Naruto, aging their appearances up to sixteen. "Uhm. What am I seeing?" Just saying that they didn't look right was an understatement. Aside from their expressions, which were completely innocent and cheerful, Sasuke's face was too round, Naruto's too sharp. The whisker marks left by the kyuubi were still there, but... No, they looked wrong, so very wrong, as though they weren't actually Sasuke and Naruto at all. 

"That's why I'm saying that they need a blood test," Kakashi replied. 

* * *

Thankfully, Obito had the necessary equipment. The results, however... 

"So. Technically. They aren't Sasuke and Naruto. Technically. But at the same time, they are." He wanted to die. Obito really, seriously, dramatically wanted to die. "It's more like, they're their own children. And uh... ummm..." His voice dropped to a mere murmur, as he really didn't want to say this. "And mine." 

Kakashi just stared at him with an inscrutable look before the man snatched everything away from him to repeat the test himself. It was strange, how many jounin level ninja were capable of doing a simple paternity test. Obito was glad to let him have at it. If Kakashi got different results, he would be happy to pretend that the first test had been completely wrong, whether or not it was. 

It wasn't wrong. With that weird little eye-smile of his, some time later Kakashi threw an arm over his shoulder and said, "Congratulations! It's twins! I also checked to make sure that they weren't Kaguya's as well. You're welcome." 

The feeling of "I fucked up so bad" came back, but all he could do was stand there, shaking his head. "You had enough of her hair to check?" 

"If I find something strange in my clothes that shouldn't be there, I tend to collect it for later investigation." Kakashi looked completely serious about it too. 

"You've gotten really strange in your old age," said Obito, trying to ignore that little voice in the back of his head that was screaming about how he wasn't ready for parenthood. He had never planned to have kids, not beyond the childish daydreams he had had about marrying Rin and becoming the Hokage and changing the world... 

"Like you're one to talk," Kakashi replied, and stepped away. "They seem to have a bit of Hatake blood in them too, but not enough to mean anything." He snorted. "It's amazing, just how FUBAR this situation has managed to get." 

And Obito wondered why Kakashi was still there, considering. He should have expected the man to take the kids and find everything out on his own but... He was a far different man than the boy Obito had once known, and for all the time he had wasted, stalking him, he still couldn't understand him.


	3. The Hunter in the Shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just who, or what, had been following our heroes?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure if it needs saying, but remember, Kakashi and Obito aren't going by their original names. :)

"Why, exactly, are we traveling on foot?" Enoki's voice was as smooth as ever, but he was probably getting a little irritated by now. 

"Reasons," Tobi replied shortly. For all they were on foot, they were also traveling the ninja way, meaning too fast for ordinary people to keep up. "As useful as Kamui is, I admit I've abused it. I've neglected the ninjutsu and taijutsu I know..." They drew to a stop in the middle of a series of rice paddies, and Tobi turned to face the other man. "We need to train. You and I both. We've gotten lazy." 

"Maa..." Enoki made a face at him, and it was odd, seeing his whole face. The mask and his hitai-ate were gone, leaving his pale skin bare in the sunlight. His lips, which should have had a modicum of color to them, looked closer to a pale purple, rather than fleshy pink. Even his left eye was uncovered, the Sharingan off, possibly never to be used again. With both eyes the same shade of grey, it seemed likely that the Sharingan would no longer be available to him (but Tobi wasn't about to write it off, either, because logic rarely applied to these situations the way one would expect). "Good enough isn't good enough, then?" 

"We've too long been pleased with minimal growth," Tobi confirmed. "When did you stop trying?" Enoki just looked displeased, not answering. Tobi sighed, about to turn and shake off the conversation, when something pinged at his senses. Immediately, he began to brighten up. He recognized that chakra, and the only way that it would be here... "Oh, clever clever!" He clapped his hands together, and Enoki just stared. "Can't you feel it? It's the same one that left the partial seal in our room!" 

"But that was days ago," Enoki said, blinking in surprise. 

"If they're young enough to train, I want to keep them," Tobi grinned. As one, they nodded and disappeared from the road. Less than a second later, Tobi reappeared, tiny miscreant in tow. He was nearly giddy when Enoki reappeared, and held the dirty brat up for the other man's inspection. "How old would you say it is, old friend of mine?" 

"Four?" Enoki guessed, and the brat shrieked, waking the children that had been sleeping in the baby-sack on Tobi's back. In time, they began to whimper unhappily, just as the brat managed to swing around hard enough to kick Enoki in the face. 

While the man cursed, the brat continued swinging from Tobi's grip. With a yell of "Kuchiyose no jutsu!" the brat broke Tobi's grip and fell to the ground. He had just long enough to think _Oh, how cute! The kid's pretending to summon!_ before something cold and wet landed on his face with a distinctly fishy smell. 

"...the fuck." Whatever it was, it was biting him, just above his eyebrow, and it had very sharp teeth. Tobi grabbed it by its amphibian slick tail and held it away from his face. It could have been an eel, or a particularly fat newt. It certainly had sharp, tiny teeth though, and from the swelling on his face, it was potentially venomous. "The brat can summon." He grinned at the little monster in his hand. 

Enoki, in the meantime, had managed to catch the filthy child before it got away. "I can't dissuade you?" he asked. 

"I'm six," yelled the brat, probably lying. Tobi trusted Enoki's guesstimation over the brat's insistence. "Unhand me, you filthy pervert!" 

While the child yelled and flailed, Tobi examined the creature in his hand, switching his hold to around its belly. It wasn't an eel - it had actual limbs, but they weren't like the limbs of a newt, either. The neck was longer and thinner than it would be on a newt, as was the tail. Taking the body in along with the legs... It was like the fat larva of a sea serpent. And that, of all the things about this situation, struck him the most. "We have to take the brat," he said, in a conversational tone. "Enoki, look at this." 

Enoki paused in the impromptu wrestling match the child had gotten him into, easily pinning flailing limbs. "What am I looking at?" 

"It's not a newt," Tobi replied, flipping one of the creature's tiny legs out so that Enoki could see it. Predictably, it tried to bite Enoki too, but fell short with a squeaky curse. 

"Aa..." The other ninja sighed, freeing a hand without letting the brat squirm free, in order to scrub at his face. "I'm afraid your point is lost on me, but I'll take it." 

"I suspect more will be clear once _it_ gets a bath," he replied, nodding at the still squirming brat. "In the meantime, we ought to think of a name for it." He was still speaking of the child. By the slightly demented smirk on his face, Tobi could tell that Enoki was well on board with the idea. 

* * *

"Opantsu," said Enoki and Tobi vetoed him with a smirk. He wondered when his friend had grown so perverse. 

"Gohan?" 

Enoki snorted. "Bulma." 

"I have a name," shrieked the brat, only to be ignored. After the initial outburst, even the babies, who tended to sleep a lot, resting up from or for causing trouble, ignored the noise. 

"Kale." Tobi thought he had a good one. 

"No one likes kale," Enoki dismissed. "Pantyhose?" 

"Goten?" Tobi frowned at his friend. "Why are you so obsessed with underwear?" 

"Why are you so obsessed with food?" Enoki countered. "Are you hungry? Bra." 

"We aren't naming the kid Bra. You might as well have said Fundoshi." 

"Hey, I like that one!" cheered Enoki, and the brat let out a despairing cry that got brief attention from the paddy workers. They were within easy earshot of the ninja, who had decided to take a break near where the workers were eating their lunch. 

"That wasn't a suggestion. We are not naming it Fundoshi. Pan?" 

"That one isn't so bad," said the brat. 

"I don't like it," said Enoki. "It sounds like cookware. Uh... Garters... nope. I'm afraid I'm fresh out of good ones. I think I'll start with common dog names, next." 

"What about the babies?" asked the brat. "What are their names?" 

"Asura and Indara," Tobi replied. 

Even though the dirt, they could see the frustration on the brat's face. "Those are real names! Weird," not actually that weird, but Tobi didn't see a point in saying as much, "but real! Why do they get real names?" 

"Because they're mine," said Tobi, and Enoki snorted. "If you weren't a stray, I'd give you a real name. I suppose we could adopt you, so you wouldn't be a stray. But I don't want to bother keeping an unwilling stray." 

For all their lazy demeanor, the brat probably couldn't see the sharpness in their eyes. "I don't have anywhere else to go," the child eventually admitted, in a near whisper. Tobi had suspected as much. 

"Is that why you were following us?" asked Enoki - and the rice farmers seemed to be listening more intently. They had been watching all along, with amusement, horror, and varied other mixed feelings. 

"Because you're ninja. And my attendants wanted me to keep learning. I didn't mean for you to catch me." 

Tobi really liked this kid. It was always nice to see someone so young actually serious about learning. Although... "These attendants of yours... are they all dead?" And even the use of that word - "attendants" - seemed to confirm the suspicions forming in his mind. 

The outburst wasn't unexpected. "What's that got to do with anything?!" 

"So they are," sighed Enoki. "What are you thinking, Tobi?" 

"It complicates things in the long run," he replied. "But in the short term, it'll be easier." He nodded, mostly to himself. "Alright. We'll adopt you. What do you think your name should be?" 

The child smiled at them, and said, in the most serious tone, "Sparkle Princess." Tobi snorted, but Enoki laughed outright. Some of the farmers, unable to hide that they had been listening, also laughed. "Hey, it's a good name!" 

Tobi shook his head, smothering his chuckle. He hadn't expected that. "No, no it isn't. What's your actual name, kid?" 

"Yuffie. But I'd like to be called Sparkle Princess." The child pouted, and now that he had more than her dirty face to go on, he could see the vaguely feminine curve of her too young face. "If you adopt me, would that make me your daughter? You must be strong, because you withstood Doogie's venom! It wouldn't be that bad, then, being your daughter." 

Doogie. That must be the not-a-newt thing. From her certainty, Doogie must have taken people down in the past. Tobi reached up to touch where he had been bitten. The flesh was badly inflamed, but it was nothing that his mokuton couldn't handle. "If you want to change your name," he said, smiling at her, "at least come up with a good one." 

"Maaa... we're being approached," said Enoki, looking in the direction of the farmers. "I'll take care of it." He got up, in a lazy fashion that Tobi hoped to break him of, and meandered over to meet the man coming halfway. 

While they talked, only the occasional word was loud enough to hear without straining for, and Tobi turned his attention back to Yuffie, who seemed curious about the sleeping babies. "Do they sleep all the time?" she asked. 

"Only when they've worn themselves out, or are preparing a coup," he replied. He wasn't exaggerating, either. Even Enoki, for whom they were usually a mixture of quiet and just plain good, was able to admit that somehow they had retained some of their demonspawn personalities while awake. 

"They're kinda cute," she said, lightly touching one of the sleeping faces. The mouth immediately gaped open, presumably to catch the wandering fingers, and Tobi caught her hand before they could be engulfed. 

"I don't want them sucking on your fingers until you've bathed," he said, in response to her questioning look. 

"Awww..." She plopped back down with an intense frown, just as Enoki returned. 

"We have a mission," the man said. Tobi was grateful that he could still - sort of - read Enoki, even after all the years they spent apart. Confusion warred with doubt just beneath the calm, bored seeming surface. "We are to retrieve a 'package' from the village, and follow the wife's instructions on what to do with it." He held up an innocuous seeming flat, grey stone. "And this is our payment." 

Tobi stared. "Is that..?" He snatched it from Enoki's hand, excited. It was. He could sense the energy of the stone. How did a rice farmer get a hold of such a thing? "And it's whole! Enoki..!" 

"I know, I know. We're going to do it, and just hope it doesn't bite our asses. With this kind of payment, though, a lot of biting is acceptable, and I might even like it." Enoki snatched it back and tucked it into a pocket. "We're on a timeline. C'mon." 

* * *

OMAKE

The hunter stalks the night. 

Her targets were oblivious, unknowing of what waited in the darkness. One slept soundly, an arm draped over his face, while the other stared into the blackness of the night. He wasn't looking at her, he was looking high above her, toward the waxing moon. Even as she watched, _he_ was on the lookout for predators. 

She must remain wary. 

Her hands were sticky, and she couldn't remember why, so even as she remained watching, she licked thoughtfully at the stickiness. It was sour, but also kind of sweet... The great hunter grew distracted. 

Shortly after, despite her growling stomach, the hunter fell asleep. 

* * *

They were moving again. They were too fast to be civilians, which was why she had marked them as prey to begin with. But on an empty stomach, it was so hard to keep up with them. Internally, she cursed them for their thoughtlessness. Shouldn't they go a little slower, so that any unobserved stalkers could keep up a little more easily? 

As though hearing her thoughts, they slowed and stopped. Inconsiderately, they stood out in the open, where it was difficult to find a place to hide. They were talking... about ninja training! She almost broke cover with her excitement. Then the dark haired one started acting weird, and after a moment, he disappeared entirely. 

The hunter had a bad feeling about this. "There you are!" he said, right in front of her, and she jerked back, trying to dart away. But he was too fast. 

The great hunter, Kisaragi Yuffie, was in deep shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the names suggested I have actually seen in some form or another in various anime. And that's incredibly sad. lol


	4. Bathtime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the brat gets a bath, and we find out a little about the stone...

The ragmuffin didn't even slow them down much. For all she was dirty and underfed, she was quick and energetic and had more stamina than most children her presumed age. They reached the village quickly, and the paddy worker's house was easy to find. 

"Maa..." said Enoki, the ever personable conversationalist, when the man's wife answered the door, warily. "Your husband told us to give you this," he paused to hand her a small, pale blue flower, "and that you'd know why we're here." 

Tobi wasn't expecting the teary-eyed gratitude on the woman's face, or the way she pulled Enoki into a hug - judging by the way his spine stiffened, Enoki wasn't expecting it either. "Thank you, thank you. Just, quickly now. Ilfalna! Come here, your father's found someone..." The woman dragged them inside and began to quickly bundle things together. "Quickly, just, take her away from here, as quickly and as far as you can. And please, please, protect her. If my husband chose you, he must have had a good reason, so please, please..." For all the rushing and bundling, it was obvious that everything was already ready, and the next thing Tobi knew, alarmingly, a young, very young, woman was bundled into his arms. "Just take her as far away as you quickly can, and keep her unseen. Please. Ilfalna, we love you, but hurry now." 

"As far and as quickly?" asked Enoki. "Tobi..." 

"Yes," Tobi agreed. If they were desperate enough to trust their daughter to complete strangers, and were willing to pay so well... They couldn't have known the quality of the ninja they hired, and Tobi had no idea _how_ the man could have seen through Enoki and been able to recognize the kind of man he was (Enoki specifically, because Tobi wasn't a good man, and if he was able to read Enoki's nature, he couldn't have done as much to Tobi, or else he _wouldn't_ have trusted them - then again, he might be giving the man too much credit). "There's little reason to stay in Rice Country. Now, Miss. Please don't be alarmed." He activated his Sharingan, which he hadn't used in days, and gently pushed the girl into the Kamui dimension. After a moment's thought, he shoved Yuffie in after her, and the babies. Then with a smirk, he grabbed Enoki, who allowed himself to be so manipulated with nothing but a pout. Before disappearing himself, he said to the woman, "Tell your husband that he was quite generous, and we'll keep her as safe as possible for the both of you." 

* * *

The girl was alarmed, even after he told her not to be. Did she think that he had said it for no reason? Enoki tried, half-assedly, to explain where she was but she only seemed to want to cower like an idiot. The babies were awake now, and looking interestedly around themselves. Asura burbled something indistinguishable, possibly a command that Indara help him to explore, and started crawling away, into the grey landscape. 

Yuffie seemed interested in Enoki's explanation, and Tobi wondered if, when he returned them to the normal part of reality, he could somehow lose her smelly dustcloud. "What's wrong with you?" she asked the much older girl, obnoxiously. "I think it's cool, and not scary at all. Where are we going now?" 

"Yes, where _are_ we going?" asked Enoki, with an obnoxiously arched eyebrow. 

Tobi shrugged. "I don't know. Where should we go? Wave Country? Kumo?" 

"Bird County. That sounds lovely, doesn't it?" Bird Country also didn't happen to have a ninja village. 

"I don't understand," said Ilfalna. "Those places. They aren't anywhere near my village..." 

"'As far and as quickly'," quoted Tobi. "There's few ways who can get further and faster than I can." Pointedly he met her eyes with his Mangekyo. "We will be wherever I want to go whenever I want to go." 

"If you really want to go far, we could go to Moon Country - an island nation across the ocean..." Enoki snorted. Then he went to pick up the exploring infants, whose cooing sounded like they were trying to tell the man something. 

Moon Country. Now that was a good idea. "Ah, and so we have a destination..." 

* * *

When they next had a roof over their heads - that night, because Tobi felt that the privacy of an inn suited their situation better - he decided that, though they had only had her with them for a matter of hours, he would not allow the brat to go any longer without bathing. She had her own fly swarm - tiny gnats that made him think she had allowed fruit to rot in her hair and pockets - and positively reeked. It had probably been weeks since she had been in water... That is, since she had been in _clean_ water. 

He sent Enoki out to procure clothing for the lot of them, and hoped the man's sense of humor wouldn't strike while he did so. He wondered again when his old friend had grown so perverse. When they were brats, he could have sworn Enoki - even though he was Kakashi then, and nothing would ever change that - was as asexual as a puppet and had the personality to match. Now, he was just... perverse, in many senses of the word. The porn could just be a beard, but he had no way of knowing. 

On the way to the bath - because he didn't trust Yuffie on her own, and didn't think to ask it of Ilfalna - he stopped to beat his head against the wall, lightly enough not to damage the smooth wood, much to the little girl's amusement. Ilfalna stood silently behind, though he wasn't sure why she was following him - mostly because she didn't trust him with a little girl, but as he didn't read minds, he was unaware of this. She carried the two infants easily enough, and so long as they weren't left alone, he didn't really care what Ilfalna got up to. 

"Why'd you do that?" asked Yuffie, still giggling. 

"Because I caught myself thinking things I don't want to," he replied, then cursorily stripped her tattered clothes off of her. 

"Perverted things?" she asked, wiggling her eyebrows ingeniously, and really, she shouldn't be grinning like that while saying such things. Especially not while naked. And probably four. 

"Nooo," he said, sniffing and coughing at her reek. Ugh, she was so, so dirty. Ilfalna sat down in one of the chairs and watched as he tried to figure out where to start. First, he would dump a bucket of water on her to loosen up some of the caked on foulness. "I was wondering about how Enoki came to be the way he is. He didn't used to be so... perverse." That really was the only word for it. 

"Oh," she said, then squealed when he dumped the cold water on her. "Kuchiyose no jutsu!" she shouted, and suddenly, something both familiar and slimy hit him in the face, and immediately began biting at the skin above his eyebrow. On the opposite side from before. He wasn't sure how she managed to get the thing by his defences, but was warily impressed. A lesser ninja would likely die. Her summoning technique was superb, in spite of the fundamental flaw of calling it out when she used it. 

He ignored the creature and set to scrubbing the grime away with a washcloth. Soon, he had to discard it for a fresh one. In her chair, Ilfalna laughed quietly at him, and he supposed that it was a good thing that she felt better. So far, he didn't have much of a read on her besides that she was quiet, depressed, and easily frightened. There was the tiniest hint of a strong personality hiding in there, though he could barely see it. 

Yuffie did her level best to escape, but being a small child meant many things - not the least of which was that as an adult, he was stronger than her, faster, more experienced, and generally had more stamina for something like this. Not to mention, there were few adults in existence that would do much better against someone like him. Even when she kicked him in the face, she couldn't get free. "If I have to, I will bind you so that you stay still. You will be clean. I will _not_ deal with your smell any longer. I was trapped for a year, injured, in a cave with a crazy old man with spotty cleaning capabilities, and as bad as that smelled, brat, you reek far more!" And there went his mouth again, running without his say so. 

"Ew," she said, and Ilfalna laughed harder. "Old man smell." Like she had any room to talk. 

"Then there was the weird not-a-corpse scent of his helper." Tobi shuddered. As well as he had always gotten along with Zetsu, before the creature betrayed him, he had never thought he would smell something worse, but Yuffie definitely topped it. "It was foul, it was nasty, it was... pervasive." There was another laugh from the doorway, and Tobi looked up to see Enoki. "I take it you did as I asked?" 

Enoki gave a little bow. "Yes. You've got something..." He gestured at his face, the region above his eyebrow. 

"I'm aware," he replied, dryly. He was content to ignore the thing scrabbling at the side of his face in order to better bite him. "Does she look clean enough to you?" 

Enoki's head tilted as he examined the girl. His eyes eventually fell to the dirty water dripping beneath the chair she was perched on, and he laughed again. "At least a couple buckets more of water," he said, moving to fill one after placing a package on another chair. "And then we'll see." 

It turned out, she wasn't as pale as them, but she was pretty pasty. And her hair was a truly garish color of purple, though the roots were black, as were her eyebrows. It wouldn't matter long, though. She was getting shaved, whether or not she protested, on account of things - lice, fleas, gnats (yes, gnats) - living in her hair. 

Soon enough, they had a bald, but clean, little girl dressed in a nice and clean child's yukata, sitting in the room with Ilfalna while Enoki and Tobi took advantage of the baths, babies and all. Indara proved to be difficult to convince into the water. He squalled loudly and fought, as much as an infant could, even in Enoki's hands. Asura took the dip with a blissful smile as Indara proved he had just as much chakra as his sort-of-twin and used it to keep himself from breaking the surface. 

"Fuck this," said Enoki, and disrupted the water's surface so that the baby - for all his bizarre mastery of chakra - couldn't hold himself up anymore. With a plop, he fell right in, and even with his head above the water, he seemed stunned into silence. 

Thankfully, he remained quiet, as he quickly discovered that he actually liked the warm water. It didn't take long for the two infants to begin splashing each other as the adults soaked. "Maa..." said Enoki. "It's been a trying few weeks, hasn't it?" 

"Mmhmm," Tobi agreed. 

"That girl. I wonder why..?" 

"She's pregnant," Tobi replied. "Beyond that, I don't know. The danger to her is in Rice County. We'll find out more soon enough." 

"Are you thinking of asking..?" Enoki raised up a bit to look at Tobi. Hooded grey eyes locked with his as Enoki did his level best to read Tobi's mind. After a moment, he snorted. "That'll go over well. She's obviously traumatized." 

Was she? Enoki might be right. "I can't tell." 

"You weren't looking," Enoki replied, then dropped back down with a sigh. "You're better than that." 

_Am I?_ Their eyes met again, and Tobi was about to say something to that effect when they both noticed _it_. Like the mature ninja they were, they both disappeared from the water, leaving the tiny baby turd floating between where they had been only a moment before. 

They dressed silently in fresh yukata, of the same mind in their current course of action. 

"Yuffie," said Enoki, upon returning to their rented room, "go and drain the tub." 

"Jeez," she said, rubbing her bare scalp and scowling up at them, "adults are so lazy..." but she went, when Enoki lazily swatted at her - an action that didn't nearly disprove her claim. A moment later, she shrieked, not unexpectedly, "But there's a turd!" 

"A downside of keeping babies," Tobi told Ilfalna, sotto voce. "They seem to defecate just wherever. It's nice to have someone else clean up after them sometimes." 

"Bathe whenever you want," Enoki told Ilfalna, some time later. "One of us will accompany you, at least to outside the door. After that, you can take that bed, with Yuffie. Asura and Indara will sleep in the bedding here, and Tobi and I will take the other bed." 

Ilfalna stared at them with her green eyes disbelieving, and Tobi thought he could see part of the problem with her. She had been violated before. Her parents likely expected the one who had done it to come back, and whoever he was, it was someone that they couldn't fight, for one reason or another. 

* * *

Sleeping in someone else's presence was strange enough. Sleeping in Enoki's space was more so, especially after his earlier contemplation. Tobi had seen enough people who fit the description of eerily beautiful (shinobi clans seemed to breed for it), but Enoki really was something else. He suspected that a lot of people would drop everything if Enoki gave them a come hither look. 

He hoped that Enoki had never perfected such expressions. The man wasn't a really good actor, outside of a fight, and somehow, it struck him as singularly strange, the thought of him doing that. He sort of wanted to know what that kind of expression would look like on Enoki's face, while at the same time, the skin on his spine crawled at the thought. 

If he tried to observe the other too closely, he knew the man would awaken, so he just saw what he could while observing the rest of the room, his eyes only occasionally falling on Enoki's peaceful face. A loud thump had him flinching briefly, before he registered that it was just Yuffie, half-fallen from the other bed. He waited for her to show signs of wakefulness, but she just laid there unmoving, her arms tightly clasped around a pillow. 

His eyes flickered back to Enoki, to find that the man hadn't even tensed. It was strange again, to think that he could trust him that much. What had he ever done to earn that trust? He had been so certain of the Infinite Tsukiyomi, so certain. If it weren't for Naruto, now Asura, he would have plowed right through. He may even have won. 

He could have had his perfect - _fake_ \- world. 

He could have had it. 

Next to him, Enoki sighed. "You're thinking too loudly. It's your turn to sleep." He laid back, somewhat grateful for the decision of when to wake Enoki to have been taken from his hands before he had to think about it. When Enoki's arm was thrown over him, he stiffened, even as the man repeated, "Sleep." 

The arm remained where it was, and sleep was a long time coming. 

* * *

"It's a rock," said Yuffie, kicking a common rock in front of her. After Enoki teased her about it for a while, Tobi had given in and gotten her a hat to cover her baldness. She wasn't dressed like the princess he suspected her to be, rather, she looked like a well off merchant's child. Tobi wasn't sure if the fact that her clothes were obviously boys' clothes was meant as further teasing or not. 

They were all dressed similarly well. Enoki had good enough taste when it came to such things. The clothes Tobi wore were similar to what he had worn in the past, but of such quality that he looked like minor nobility. And if he were... He eyed Enoki sidelong, again taking in the new outfit. It looked good - sleeveless, with a band covering his Anbu tattoo - and while of similarly good quality, he looked, ironically, more like a bodyguard... Which made Ilfalna either Tobi's young wife - far, far too young, which, ew, made him feel gross - or a retainer. He preferred the latter. They needed a nanny, anyway, and she looked the part when they let her carry the babies. "It's not just a rock," he said, in response to Yuffie's childish grouching. "It looked like a rock. But you looked like you thought it was gold." She skip hopped in the street ahead of them. 

"It's a seal stone," he replied. "They're better than gold." 

"But it looked like just a rock." Yuffie paused to frown at him. 

"So are diamonds," said Enoki. "But you'll never see anyone with the right senses pass one of these for a mere diamond... now hush." Tobi examined his choice in clothing again, making note not to let Enoki pull such a thing next time. There was irony in Enoki playing the part of vassal, when, in spite of their affluence, the Uchiha clan had never been anything but vassals, and the Hatake clan was, up to only a few generations back, the actual minor nobility that Tobi was now emulating. 

"You're ridiculous," he muttered. As though he knew exactly what Tobi was thinking, Enoki just smirked at him. They would be equals in this, he decided, meeting Enoki's eyes with a sharp look. Even if he had to drag Enoki along by his hair, kicking and screaming, they were never going to be anything but equals ever again. 

* * *

What they told Yuffie about the seal stone was oversimplified. Seal stones were worth a lot, and not just because they were exceedingly rare. They were necessary for certain types of large, permanent seals, and could only be made by masters of the sealing arts. After the fall of Uzu, the few remaining Seal Masters refused to make them, even for their own villages, and by the time Tobi was a grown man, they were practically nonexistent. The few that existed were closely guarded secrets, and if you were willing to sell one... 

You could easily buy one of the smaller countries. Supposedly. 

Many nights later, in yet another nondescript inn (this one somewhere in Snow Country), Tobi nicked the stone from Enoki - knowing better than to think the man was unaware of this - to examine its chakra more closely. He was a savant at sensing chakra, even over great distances, and he wondered... Certainly, it wasn't part of the plan, but then again, neither were Yuffie and Ilfalna. But he wondered. Was the seal stone's chakra distinct enough for him to find others like it? 

"Oi. Asshole," he said, nudging Enoki until the man gave in and acknowledged him. "I'm going out." It probably wasn't necessary to say. Ilfalna was nothing if not excellent dealing with the babies, but the warning might prevent Yuffie from trying to follow him into Kamui again. Obviously she failed, but it had been a headache and a half. 

"Whatever," Enoki replied, slowly flipping through the pages of a stolen bingo book. "Try not to bring back trouble." 

As if. Tobi snorted, but made his exit without further comment. 

Once in his Kamui dimension, he took out the stone and focused on it. It was an odd thing, and it felt like energy folded a thousand times over and... Spreading his focus, he found that he could sense points like it, all exactly the same distance away. Every one of them was as close as the others. They were all within his reach. 

Tobi grinned a twisted little grin, and reached out at random, leaping towards the first stone... 

And found himself crushed, drowning in near blackness. From far above, light filtered down, but it wasn't enough to see by. He could still sense the stone though, and with considerable effort, reached out and pried it from the coral it was embedded in. Then he returned to the other dimension, hacking up water. 

That... was unexpected. 

In retrospect, it seemed obvious that there would be unused seal stones on the ocean floor. Especially after the fall of Uzu. He coughed a little more, making sure that he had gotten all of the water out. He would have to be more careful with his next jump. He might even have to do this in increments, if enough of them were that deep. 

Performing a jutsu he had learned in Kiri, so that he wouldn't have the breathing problem again, he prepared for the next jump. 

* * *

OMAKE

Tobi did many things that didn't make sense. Staring into an infant's eyes, Mangekyo active, for nearly an hour, was one of those things. He had done it, off and on, with both Asura and Indara, ever since they had come into the past. This time, however, was a bit different. After he was done, he let out a frustrated sigh. 

"What's up?" Enoki's voice was quiet, eyes sharp, watching Tobi curiously. He knew, without a doubt, that whatever the other was doing, he wasn't harming them when he did it. 

"It's no use," he groaned, letting Indara flop forward onto his chest, even as he fell onto his back. "They're starting to forget." 

That... was weird. He had been interrogating the babies. That was one of those things they never told you about becoming a ninja, that things like that not only happened, but were a feasible source of information. The Yamanakas could tell you all about it. "They remembered?" Enoki asked, raising both eyebrows. He wondered just how much an infantile mind could hold. Apparently not much... or at least, not for long. 

"Sort of. I have no idea if they'll ever recover it, and there were some things that only they knew about what happened... Did you know that Sasuke was responsible for the previous Hokages joining the fight?" 

"Makes sense," Enoki replied. After all, Naruto had been too busy to pull off that particular miracle. 

"And they both had a long, in depth discussion with the Six Paths Sage? Apparently about each other?" 

"Not as surprised I should be," he replied. 

"And they're his sons, after about a few hundred or so reincarnations?" 

"Oooookay... Just. Stop." 

"And the precursor to ninjutsu was ninshuu, which was meant to help people communicate better, and stop fighting and all that." Tobi had a little smile, which Enoki took as teasing. 

"Somehow, I can see that." Although he tone was dry, he did mean it. There was something to the rumor that the greatest chakra users could pretty much read each other's minds when they went up against each other. Naruto had been ridiculously good at doing that with just about anyone. "But I meant it. Stop. Give me the highlights later. I can live without the weird parts." 

There was a quiet chuckle from the other man, and for the moment, he subsided.


	5. And Then There Were More

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tobi certainly dyidn't kidnap anyone, and definitely doesn't deserve retribution.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't even know. Friendly reminder that this is not meant to be taken seriously at all, even if it has serious tones...

Indulging Tobi's craziness was probably one of the easiest parts of Enoki's current situation. There was an odd sort of logic beneath many of his actions, and generally, it was safe enough to just let him go his own way when he was wound up about something. It wasn't worth getting in his way. Usually. 

No, there were other things that bothered him, he thought, turning the page of his book. Completely dropping his original identity (even though it was logical, even _sensible_ ), leaving behind his hitai-ate (his connection to a home). Losing his mask. That was hard. That was ridiculously hard. The gentle brush of air moving against his face felt harsh and grating without the cloth buffer. The air was too dry, not caught on his own breath. He was slowly getting used to it, but he had worn the mask near constantly for most of his life. He didn't think the lack would ever feel entirely natural. 

The constant company, he could almost ignore; as a ninja, he had had to suffer closer quarters with more uncomfortable companions before. Usually for longer. Ilfalna's soft humming as she played with Indara. Asura's weird baby noises as he played on the floor with Enoki's discarded sandal. Yuffie, splashing around in the bathroom. They were all noises that he could almost tune out. If Tobi was present, he might even allow himself to do so. As it was, he couldn't allow himself to. Even without his village, he was still shinobi, through and through. 

He wondered sometimes, what Tobi thought of his apparent compliance. It wasn't really an act, but he was fully prepared for Tobi to become his enemy again - he closed his eyes against a deep, internal, _"No, you're not."_ It was enough, for now, that they were on the same side. As long as Tobi wasn't trying to take over the world, so long as his new leaf stayed turned over, Enoki would try to be content. (Tobi becoming his enemy now would probably break him all over again. He wondered, deep down, if he would survive it... Probably not.) 

Because he still remembered Obito dying - _"...I'll become your eye... and see the future with you."_

"You seem a little more sane than him," observed Ilfalna, interrupting his thoughts. Her voice was faintly skeptical, but when he looked up, her gaze was serious, and vaguely concerned. "I know what papa asked of you, and I hope he was right, but..." She gave a small, helpless shrug. "I don't know what I'm doing here." 

"He paid us to protect you," Enoki allowed - not that he knew what they could do with the payment they had been given. They could just leave her somewhere safeish and go their merry way, but that would hardly be following the spirit of the agreement he had made with her father; it wouldn't be respectful of the tears of her mother. He turned the page again, even though he had hardly absorbed a word of what he read. 

"With a trinket," she said, faint bitterness in her tone. "What really is that even worth? I know what you told Yuffie, but..." 

The book dropped onto his chest, and he sighed, closing his eyes. He wanted to be irritated, but he couldn't find it in him to fault her for doubting them. "An honest man," he said, after a long moment spent gathering his thoughts, "would see you protected for the rest of your life, or as long as he could manage. I prefer to be honest, given a chance, and the Tobi I knew when we were young didn't have a dishonest bone in his body. I won't tell you to trust us - that's for you to decide." He didn't look directly at her as he spoke but he could see her weighing his words. For now, that was good enough. 

"And he's not the Tobi you knew?" 

Enoki snorted, picking his book back up. "He's changed a lot, but... I think he's still the same, deep down." Ilfalna couldn't see his smile, as it was incongruously directed at the scowling image of a missing-nin - the downside, he mused, of hiding his expression with a stolen bingo book. It wasn't his preferred reading material, but he would take what he could get (not wanting to reread Icha Icha Tactics until he couldn't stand it anymore meant that he had to find new reading material). As for Tobi... He hoped he was right. 

* * *

Tobi returned in a rush of voices, one of which was, while not known to him, still unfortunately familiar, so Enoki did the only thing he could think to do - kawarmi. Somewhere in the room, Tobi laughed, bright and unexpectedly cheerful, "Enoki, you coward!" 

A young, male voice said, in a tone that was desert dry, "That's a special kind of cowardice..." 

It took him a moment to decide what, exactly was meant with the comments. Since he was laying on the floor with his sandals, he concluded that it was because he had traded places with Asura. "Babies are immune to grandmas," he said in his defence, but he popped his head up so that he could see over the edge of the bed and see just what - or who - Tobi had dragged back with him. 

The old lady was tiny, and angry, but Tobi completely ignored her, to the extent that she gave up long enough to start huffing (angrily, of course) on a pipe. With her, there were four teenagers; a brown haired girl, a black haired, green eyed thug, and two redheads, one of whom had to be one of the most unfortunate looking young men Enoki had had the opportunity to meet. 

Enoki pursed his lips, trying to figure out why the lot of them were suddenly crowding the rented room. Only one explanation seemed to fit, as dubious as he was about it. "Tobi," he began, in a warning tone (noting offhandedly that Tobi didn't seem to recognize said tone), "did you kidnap these people?" 

"No," he said, still perfectly cheery, even as five other voices interrupted with a resounding "Yes!" 

Praying for strength, a prayer that would surely go unanswered, Enoki asked flatly, "Why?" 

"The old lady has a stone," Tobi replied, making a face. He wiggled in place, like he was uncomfortable, and now that Enoki was looking, he could see that Tobi's clothes were wet, though not quite dripping. More than that, he could smell sea salt - which he had initially attributed to the kidnapping victims - and a hint of blood. Was Tobi injured? Before he could ask, Tobi's hands flashed through a series of seals before he tapped himself on the chest and sighed with relief. 

Enoki _knew_ that particular jutsu, just like he knew over a thousand more. It was a Kiri-nin technique that equalized water pressure in the body - usually used to counter the bends. Just what the hell had Tobi been up to? "And that meant you could kidnap them?" 

"Yes," Tobi agreed. 

"No," Enoki countered firmly. "You do not get to kidnap people just because one of them has something you want. It's not..." Here he floundered. He knew Tobi's grasp on sanity wasn't the best, and he wasn't sure what kind of argument would get through to him. Ninjas flouted legality all the time, so that was a poor argument. Eventually, he settled on, "It isn't very nice. We're trying to be good guys, remember?" 

"Since when are we trying to be good guys?" Tobi asked, rubbing at his ear and frowning. "We're working towards a goal, yes, but that goal is essentially to murder someone, so you can't say we're _good_ guys." 

Tobi had a point, but Enoki wasn't about to drop it and let him win. "Since said someone is out to destroy the world as we know it, yes, that makes us good guys." 

"Since the plan is to kill her in her sleep if at all possible..." 

"And we'd die if we didn't do it that way because she's a literal demon," Enoki pointed out, even though this was the first time Tobi had said such a thing. He doubted that it would be possible to get to her in her sleep, either, which meant that Tobi was just running his mouth - very much like when they were children. And that was either worrying, or promising, Enoki wasn't sure which. "Which, again, makes us the good guys." 

"Doing it for personal reasons..." Tobi protested, like he _wanted_ to be a bad guy. 

"Literal demon. Try again." 

Tobi tried, flailing for a moment, before giving up with a shrug. "Still, personal reasons. But like I said..." He tilted his head to the side, lifting a hand touch his ear and frowning. "Uh... yeah, she's... uhm... got one of those stones." He pulled his hand away from his ear and scowled at it. 

"And why are your ears bleeding?" Enoki asked, not entirely sure he wanted an answer. 

"I was looking for seal stones," Tobi replied, his tone perfectly casual, like the words that were coming out of his mouth weren't at all disturbing. "A shocking number of them... or not so shocking, after I actually thought about it... were on the ocean floor. I saw an angler fish!" 

He... Enoki's face contorted into a grimace and he folded his hands over his eyes. This was the guy that the entire shinobi world had gathered together to fight (even if he'd been using the name "Madara", it was still him). "Tobi..." he began, only to be interrupted by an indignant screech... from Ilfalna. 

" _You!_ You moron!" she shouted, and with a surge of chakra - which, _what?_ \- slapped Tobi hard enough that the sharp _crack_ of it echoed through the room. 

Tobi stared at her with wide, confused eyes, then he blinked. Shook his head. Blinked again. "What..?" And he started. A slow smile crossed his face. In a curious tone, he asked, "What did you do?" Then she kicked him, which only made him laugh. "Hey, Enoki, it looks like we've got something interesting on our hands." 

* * *

And that's how they got the whole story out of her. 

It turned out that a local samurai, or a lordling of some power, had found out about her proto-bloodline, and had been harassing her for some months. Her own healing chakra kept her from being able to fight him off - for every hit only seemed to heal. And now that she was pregnant... by custom and local law, he could force her to marry him, and her parents could do nothing. 

"And now that that's no longer a mystery," drawled Enoki, "I'm going to have to insist that Tobi puts these other folks back where he found them." 

Somehow, in spite of saying this - repeatedly, even - the group was still around several days later. The only ones who seemed to care that they were there were Enoki and the old lady, who turned out, strangely enough, to be one of the Uzumaki. Despite the fact that she was beyond elderly, Genkai ruled over her batch of teenagers with an iron fist... and after a couple days, even she stopped protesting Tobi's strange insistence on adopting them. 

The crazy sort of life Tobi was dragging Enoki into - babies, for one thing, a bunch of teenagers, seal stones (he had apparently collected quite a few before encountering old Genkai), an angry old bat for another - shouldn't be able to become routine, yet... Alright. So it wasn't like Enoki didn't somehow manage to find a stray of his own, but in his defence, the kid had a cool dog - a Shiba Inu by the name of Tobimaru (and that had led to an amusing argument about the dog being named after Tobi, which had continued until the kid tried to bite Tobi). And then there was his keeper. The man was mostly quiet in a way that implied that the kid was in charge. 

Soon enough, the number of kids outweighed the adults by far too much, and then... 

Then Tobi proved to be a right bastard, leaving Enoki, Nanashi (or so the kid called him) and Genkai (whose joints creaked, she was so old) one night, watching too many children to disappear into some bar or other. Enoki didn't even know what continent the air headed jerk was on! Well... He supposed that "air head" was inaccurate, considering that it had to have been a calculated decision. Either way, he wasn't going to put up with shit like this, and it was about time that Tobi learned that. 

But how to make him pay..? 

He only had until Tobi came back - and at times like this, he missed his Sharingan, not that he would waste his chakra on a technique as nebulous as Kamui - to formulate a plan. He had so many ideas, but there was no way to implement even a fraction of them. The only thing that kept coming back to him was the fact that, for some reason, Tobi was utterly, childishly, scandalized that one time he picked up the battered form of Icha Icha. Porn. Somehow, porn was the key here. 

... 

What would Naruto do? 

... 

Aaah. Yes, he had it. 

An evil grin slowly formed on his face, and he could hear one of the brats saying, "I'm really glad I'm not Tobi-san right now. That's a scary face." 

"E-no-ki-saaan!" Yuffie sang, pulling up too close - he didn't like people to get so close to him, even though he used the invasion of personal space as one of the many weapons in his arsenal. Outward signs of his discomfort were few, however, and usually well hidden. "Teach me how to make faces like that!" 

"Maaa... Sorry, but... it won't work on your face. Your cheeks are too fat and your teeth are too flat." Namely, she had all her baby teeth, and they were as blunt as those of any other children he'd seen, with the exception of some clan kids. "The reason it works for me... hmmmm... you can see that there's something strange in my ancestry." It wasn't uncommon for ninjas to have inhuman ancestry. In his case, he liked to think of wolves and kami, but he had never actually dug far enough into the Hatake clan records to find out for sure. It was one of the many things he had avoided after his father's death. "You just look like an ordinary brat." 

Her face screwed up and he could see, alarmingly, tears starting to well up in her eyes. She reached up and punched him in the chest before he could think beyond _Shit, what did I say?_ "You don't have to be mean about it!" And she turned and ran into the corner of the room, opposite him. 

Incredulous, he asked, "Are you crying?" He noted the way the other kids seemed to cringe. He was pretty sure he hadn't been _that_ mean. 

Her voice was snotty and wet sounding, and she was obviously lying when she said, "Nooo!" 

"Why would you be crying?" 

Keiko - the girl who had come with Genkai - jabbed him in the shoulder, seemingly unaware that she was poking someone _very dangerous_. "You don't know anything about kids, do you?" 

"I've tried very hard not to have anything to do with children since I was one." _And yet, here I am._ For all that he handled babies well enough, children old enough to converse with were a different matter. He didn't like them very much, and the only ones he had ever really grown close to were his students. 

Genkai actually laughed, smoke puffing from her nostrils. "You're just a bit socially retarded, aren't you? That's what happens when children don't interact with each other when they're young." Like he missed out on something significant when he chose to focus on training, rather than socializing when he was a child (of course, he knew that, it was just something that he pretended wasn't true). 

"I'm fully aware of this," he replied, rolling his eyes. "Yet I was trusted with children anyway..." _And look how that turned out... All three of them, hailed as great ninja, yet they were so emotional... Not even Sasuke could pull off a stoic face. Even after Orochimaru, Sasuke never looked anything shy of simmering rage._ "You really should mitigate me. I'm a terrible influence on children. Apparently, you aren't supposed to be blunt with them," he continued, staring at Yuffie, who was just beginning to recover from her little fit, and blinking her reddened eyes at him from over her shoulder. 

"Blunt is fine," Genkai said, tapping ash from the bowl of her pipe, "once they get used to it. What you need to work on, before these young'uns get much bigger, is understanding them. Especially if you want them to grow into good, responsible adults. You can't leave that up to Tobi." Unspoken, the word _obviously_ hung in the air. But he wasn't sure they could leave such a thing up to _him_ , either. 

"Yare yare," he sighed. Routine life might be becoming, but he was sure at this rate he was going to turn into a Nara in all but name. _So much trouble..._ "Maaa... Isn't it time for the brats to hare off sleep?" 

* * *

Tobi didn't stumble back until the witching hour, and Enoki wondered at the wisdom of using Kamui while so heavily intoxicated. Tobi could barely keep his feet, and with a deep sigh, Enoki got up to help the inconsiderate asshole to bed. "You are going to regret this." 

"Not regretting," Tobi replied, sing song, and surprisingly articulate for a man who moved like he didn't have knees. 

"You will in the morning," said Enoki, matching his tone with a particularly evil look on his eyes. "Believe you me, you _will_ regret this in the morning." Yet he continued helping Tobi, as it was pointless to let his drunken self wake anyone else in the suite - they had upgraded due to numbers, and occasionally, the two of them got to sleep unencumbered by children. Enoki had made sure that tonight would be such a night, because in the morning... 

Well. 

Revenge would be sweet, and by that time, it will have had a chance to cool. 

If he was lucky, the bastard would scream. 

* * *

OMAKE

(About Enoki's porn.) 

Tobi was familiar with that orange cover. He had seen it many times over the years, in various hands. Sometimes, it was exactly what it appeared to be - though he had never read it himself - and other times, it was a disguise. Deep down, he had expected that this copy was disguising something else. 

What would someone like Enoki hide behind that lurid cover? 

He opened the book, letting it fall open to the most loved page and began reading. It took longer than he would like to admit for his mind to actually catch up to the words he was reading - words like "heaving" and "turgid" and "thrusting". The book fell from his limp hands, and he flinched at the sound of it hitting the floor. 

Enoki had been reading porn in public, at random. Actual porn. Real. Porn. In front of Tobi. In front of the kids. Actual porn. With a straight face! And Tobi hadn't even known! 

... 

Actual porn! He had been reading actual porn all along! 

There was only one thing he could do about this. 

* * *

Finding a dark corner to hide in until the cause for his discomfiture has blown over was a habit from Tobi's childhood. One that he wished had disappeared with his youth, though it wasn't worth going through the effort to change. It was embarrassing, being caught hiding in dark places that a man of his size could barely fit into. Even as on the outside he snarled at the idea of someone finding him like this, internally, he flailed. 

This was the first time he had done this since the time he had spent partnered with Deidara - and boy, was that an incident he didn't like to think about. Foot-in-mouth syndrome at its finest. 

_"Deidara-senpai is really good with his hands!" he had said cheerily, one particularly nice day before they had managed to catch the Sanbi. It was true. Deidara could make all sorts of interesting little sculptures with just his tongues and explosive clay. It was fun to watch. "Senpai's probably really popular with the ladies!"_

_They just stood there looking at each other for a long moment, Deidara's eyebrow raising in bafflement over his open eye._

_"What?" asked Tobi (because he was Tobi then, as well). "What did I say?" He then thought back on what he had said, and quickly choked on his tongue. "That's not what I meant, you pervert! I meant your sculptures and shit! Girls like knick-knacks!"_

_Deidara blinked at him and said, "Well, girls do like knick-knacking, yeah?"_

_He could feel his face flush beneath his mask as he gave a hearty wail... And ran away._

_It took Deidara nearly an hour to talk him out from under those tree roots, and he almost spoiled it for himself when he commented, "You gave me a whole new set of pick up lines to use, yeah." Tobi had almost come out by that point, but with those words, he shoved himself further into the hole. "Oh come on, you prudish weirdo! How deep it that fucking hole, anyway?"_

Tobi hugged his knees to himself, still snarling at the orange covered book that he could still see, in spite of his excellent hiding place. He couldn't hide from the horrible phrases the book had imbedded in his brain. "Heaving bosoms", "turgid cocks"... yes, both phrases had used the plural. How could Enoki read that shit with a straight face? If he was trying to use it to understand how people work, then he picked the wrong kind of book. In public! 

Tobi groaned, hiding his face in his hands. 

The arrival of the others briefly drowned out his snarling, and a pair of familiar feet stopped next to the book. "Maa... What are you doing on the floor?" A calloused hand picked up the book, while Enoki turned his head, spotting Tobi with absolutely no difficulty. "And what are _you_ doing in there?" 

Now he could admit that his hiding spot wasn't that good. But it was only embarrassingly bad if he let it embarrass him. "In public," he managed to squeak in the middle of all his snarling. 

The baffled look was strangely similar to the one Deidara had worn. Enoki watched him for a short time before shaking his head. "Nope. As humorous as your overreaction to my porn habit is, I'm not dealing with it right now."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another reminder - the ratings will change. Possibly with the next chapter if someone thinks I ought to change them. Also, eventually, there will be smut. Maybe. I'm trying, anyway. :D
> 
> Next time: "The Oiroke Appears! What?!"


	6. The Oiroke Appears! What?!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enoki's revenge - with a technique for the ages! Their first physical altercation since their temporal relocation, and shinobi watch the "marital spat" from an unshadowed space!

Waking to another's presence was still new enough that Tobi had to search his memories of the night before. His hangover seemed mild enough, though he wasn't quite sure if he made it back to the others last night. His escape had been impromptu, but the children had been getting on every last nerve, and they couldn't stay good guys - even if that was just Enoki's opinion - if he started killing kids, right? 

He stretched and his hand skimmed something unexpected. Bare flesh. Not his bare flesh, but soft and smooth bare flesh that dimpled beneath his spasming fingers. He stiffened, eyes still closed, as he panicked internally. What did he do last night? He could have sworn he was heading back?! 

Maybe he didn't head back alone? Maybe... he didn't head back? He could have sworn that Enoki had helped him to bed, but... 

Tentatively, he ran his fingers over what he had already been touching. Definitely something soft and naked, and there was a heavy weight against him. And air. More air than there should be. Were those legs entwined with his? A small whimper escaped his throat. What did he do? What _should_ he do? 

Fuck, she - _she_? he thought the body felt female - smelled good though. Really, really good. For the moment, he could pretend that he wasn't about to freak out, and just... Subtly, he moved his head until his nose was brushed up against her hair, and she squirmed closer to him, causing too much naked skin to slide together. _Holy..!_ That felt unbelievably good. 

Suddenly, he was angry with himself, though the feeling was muted beneath... well, everything else. He finally got around to losing his virginity - hey, he was a busy, understandably paranoid man who had had horrific scarring since he was pretty young (also, intimacy issues) - and he didn't even remember it. Okay, he could admit that that might not actually have happened, contrary to the evidence. The evidence, however, said that he had probably gotten laid last night, and... She smelled really, really good. Sexy. 

Damn, but he hated his life. 

He wondered if she looked as good as she smelled. Or felt, because... She moved again, and this time, she seemed to be sitting up. Long, soft hair dragged against his skin as she moved and he fought against another whimper. What was she doing? 

Even with his hand loosely sliding down her side from her new position, he found that he was afraid to open his eyes. Whatever he saw would be captured in his memory forever, because he couldn't make the Sharingan turn off. He was still panicking too much. 

His hand slowed to a stop somewhere in the vicinity of her... hips. He told himself that it was her hip, but... Denial didn't work very well. First thing in the morning, and his hand was cupped against some strange woman's buttocks. Buttocks that were a really nice medium of soft and firm under his hand. 

Either this was the best morning ever or the worst, and he couldn't decide which. 

"Ohayo," she said sweetly, and her voice... wow. That didn't help matters. Sweet and deep, for a woman, but it wasn't an unattractive voice. It sounded a little like... a lot like... But the timbre was wrong for it to be... "I know you're awake." 

Clearly, he couldn't get away with feigning sleep. He wasn't sure when that ship had sailed, but it was long gone. Hesitantly, he opened his eyes and got his first look at her. She was, flat out, genjutsu-free, gorgeous. But... He winced internally. If he had to pick up some strange woman, he could have at least not picked one that looked like Kakashi - Enoki, he reminded himself. Silvery white hair rose in a soft, staticy cloud around her head, but the shear mass of it - longer by far than he could even imagine Enoki growing his - mostly weighed it down. Amused grey eyes looked at him from a long, milky-pale face (not whole milk pale, either, more like 1%, with the vaguely translucent look that implied), and she gracefully dropped to rest against his chest. 

This was possibly the worst permutation of this that he could imagine. It said things about him that he had been steadfastly refusing to acknowledge, but now was being forced to confront. "Hmmm, last night was wonderful," she crooned, eyes half-lidded. With little prickly sensations, he felt her fingers walk up his chest. 

Oh God, what did he do? There was no way a woman like this was going to say something like that to an inexperienced virgin. "Uuhm..." His voice came out as awful sounding croak. No words would come, either, no matter how his mouth worked. 

"No, really, you're very sweet. I had fun." There was a hint of a laugh in her voice, yet she still seemed sincere. She stroked his jaw, which still moved with words that he couldn't utter. Leaning up, she kissed the corner of his mouth, then turned just enough to drag her lips across his, followed by her tongue. She sucked his bottom lip between her teeth and nipped at it. His brain shut down completely when she deepened the kiss. It wasn't that he had never been kissed, but... She smelled so good. She pulled back just enough to speak, and she sounded even more amused, if huskier. "Tobi's been a bad boy," she breathed against his lips, and he wanted nothing more than to agree. 

But she pulled back further, and he whimpered again, trying to follow after, only to find his shoulder pinned to the bed. 

"We really should talk more," she purred, placing a finger against his lips. "We didn't get much of a chance for it last night, and I would _looove_ to get to know you better." Something... there was something odd, niggling at him, about her way of speaking. She had used the masculine form of "I" (instead of the feminine "atashi", or even the more formal "watashi", she used the crudely masculine "omae"), and it didn't really suit her. 

"I..." His voice, again, was hardly more than a croak. He wanted to ask her name, but his own voice was jarring. It cleared his head just enough that that one word - "I" - seemed significant. He licked his lips and frowned. "I..." Why hadn't he tried sensing out where he was? 

* * *

Genkai nearly choked on her pipe at the shriek that interrupted their midday meal. That had been Tobi. Nanashi faceplanted against the table, barely pushing his food aside first, with a heartfelt groan. "It's too early for this shit." 

Genkai agreed (any time was too early for it, in her opinion), but couldn't help but wonder what Enoki had done to garner such a reaction. She was about to say as much when she heard the chuckle - not nearly as loud as the scream, but given that she could hear it at all, Enoki wasn't even trying to keep his voice down. "What even... How did you..? I don't..! I..! This is sexual harassment!" Through Tobi's shrill ranting, Enoki could still be heard laughing. 

Sexual harassment? Given that she had heard Tobi come stumbling in this morning, drunk as a skunk, that phrase could mean anything. It could be something as minor as waking up with a pillow book over his face, but somehow Genkai suspected it was going to turn out more interesting than that. 

There was a loud crash, and the door banged open, Tobi half hopping, half stumbling as he fought to get his pants on. It was a view, marred as Tobi's body was, that even a woman of her age could appreciate. "Seriously!" he shrieked, with a flush so dark that it could be mistaken for apoplexy. "What the fuck, man, that's not okay! I can't... I can't..!" He seemed to deflate at that point. Possibly remembering that he had a hangover, Genkai noted, as his face paled from red to an ugly shade of chartreuse. "I can't..." he muttered weakly. "Oh God. How is this my life?" 

Enoki's revenge was already looking pretty good, she decided. She actually did choke on her pipe when Enoki followed him out. Some sort of genjutsu, she told herself, as Enoki gave one of those odd little smiles, more eyes than mouth, that were so distinct to him. If he were so good at genjutsu, he didn't _have_ to look so much like himself. That had to be a mindfuck in and of itself. "Now, now, you can't say you didn't deserve it. And I even warned you last night, didn't I?" Given that he didn't even bother to cover himself - something she hoped would be different if any of the kids were present - she had to forgive Nanashi the bug-eyed stare he leveled at Enoki. 

"You..! How? Fuck. Go. Go put something on. Please. I'll... I'll make you a plate or something, just... turn back to normal and get dressed." 

Ten minutes later, Enoki was dressed - much to Nanashi's disappointment - and eating with them, while the kids all gave him leary looks but refused to comment on his different... form. Even Yuusuke, who was usually the first to make a noise about things being different or weird, said nothing, though his eyes regularly traveled the same trails as Nanashi's. It probably would have helped, had Enoki belted his yukata like a woman, rather than like a man, but every time she said something, he ignored it - and she was beginning to doubt that this was a genjutsu. 

Tobi spent the majority of the meal nursing his hangover and trying not to look at his companion, though he still occasionally muttered about how he didn't understand. 

A few hours later, and Enoki still hadn't changed back. The clothing grew slightly more modest, but that was hardly saying anything. There was no way he'd be mistaken for anything but a kunoichi or a whore - except whores weren't usually so obviously well armed. 

* * *

You couldn't tell by looking at them what country they were from, but they were obviously ninja. The woman flirted outrageously with the man, who... Jiraiya smothered a chuckle. It wasn't that the poor guy didn't notice what she was doing, it was more like she was so over the top about it that she was scaring him. 

Jiraiya really wanted to know what she was doing under the table. Orochimaru interrupted his thoughts with, "Fifty ryo on inappropriate touching," and Jiraiya twitched. 

"Stop reading my mind, teme," he hissed, and next to him, Tsunade laughed. 

"It wasn't like we weren't all thinking it." After several moments of silence, spent unobtrusively studying the couple, she said, "The next round on 'footsie'. I can see both of her hands, and he's way too tense." 

_Her foot, huh?_ Jiraiya began to formulate a plan to drop something so that he could check, but Orochimaru beat him to it, sliding his elbow over and knocking an empty cup off of the table, then smoothly leaned over to pick it up. 

"By 'footsie', did you mean..?" 

"It's in his lap, isn't it?" Tsunade grinned. "Pay up." 

Now, why wouldn't a beautiful woman ever do that with him? Jiraiya pondered the sad facts of his life as the new round appeared. "Shit, he's lucky, though. Guy like that, getting a girl like that?" She even looked like she was probably wearing his clothes, and what guy didn't like that? 

"She could use a hairbrush," Tsunade replied, dryly. It was true, her pale - was it white, grey, or just a really pale blonde? - hair was a little... wild looking. And she carried herself like the Inuzuka matriarch - uncaring of the looks she got for her inappropriate behavior. 

"Doesn't stop her from being gorgeous," Jiraiya said. He suspected that he would have to live with only admiring from afar. By the looks she gave her companion, he would say that they were in a committed relationship. 

"She looks like a wild animal," Orochimaru snorted. "And that man..." He trailed off thoughtfully, and eventually shrugged. "There's something strange about him." As if the scars weren't a dead giveaway. There were many ways to achieve such extensive scarring, and none of them were exactly pleasant. 

Not much of the couple's conversation reached them, and what did was mostly exclamations from the man about his companion's behavior. The woman spoke too softly for Jiraiya's ears to catch more than a rare word, even if he heard enough to know that while she had a deceptively soft and lovely voice, she spoke like a man. A quiet man, but still. 

After a time, they were approached by another man and woman - the man of average height, and fairly young, but with an old, tired look in his eyes, and the woman both diminutive and ancient, though her eyes sparkled with an almost youthful energy. This woman's voice carried. "You said you wanted to be ready to go by now, so I shouldn't have to drag you out of a bar - even you, Enoki-san!" 

Perhaps it was a change of angle, but this time, the first woman's voice was clear, in spite of her laconic drawl, "Maa... I couldn't help but tease the virgin some more. It's proven to be..." She didn't get to finish her sentence. With a crackle of chakra - only sensed by high level shinobi and the like - the table exploded, sending the old woman and the man that had approached them dodging for cover while the pale haired woman bounced out of range in a single, catlike motion. "Eeh? So you _are_ a virgin? Why didn't you tell... me?" She dodged again, as the remains of the table, for lack of a better word, grew toward her. "These things are really easily fixed you know!" 

Beside him, Tsunade cursed, and grabbed Jiraiya by the sleeve, yanking him out of the way of a wooden missile that shouldn't have been heading in his direction to begin with. And the fight only escalated from there. The woman mostly dodging and yelling humorously inflammatory insults at her companion as the Sannin and the couple's two visitors tried to help the normal people escape. 

This was the sort of fight one often saw in the middle of the hidden villages - not in random civilian towns in the middle of nowhere. 

"I don't know if I can do it anymore," groaned the man that had been accompanying the older woman, once the civilians were clear of the fight. "I know, deep down, that they're good people, if a bit..." 

"Insane?" suggested the old woman. 

"Yeah. And they're better than the last Lord I served, but..." He sighed, casting a woeful look in the direction of the bar. "At least Kotaro likes them." 

"Was that... mokuton?" asked Tsunade, hoarsely, and the man glanced over at her, only able to offer a shrug. 

"I have no idea what those two are," he said. "Just... good, crazy people." The man told them no more, and left, retiring with the old lady to a tea shop nearby, to wait out the altercation. 

"That was..." Tsunade flailed. 

"That happened," Orochimaru agreed, even though _even Jiraiya_ knew that that wasn't what had Tsunade so worked up. 

"That's still happening," Jiraiya observed, his voice nearly drowned out by another crash, as something like a tree rose up from the ruins of the bar. "So, uh... we're going to have to report this, aren't we?" 

"Yes," agreed Orochimaru. 

"And... how, exactly, are we going to do that?" Duty or not, Jiraiya could tell this was going to be a clusterfuck. They were going to be detained forever, while they were pumped for every little bit of information they had. 

"I would suggest using a henge," said Orochimaru, while Tsunade continued to make senseless noises. 

"...okay. But who do we hate that much?" he asked, taking a step back as more of someone's livelihood was destroyed. 

Orochimaru gave him stinkeye. "I meant so that we can report their appearances accurately... but your idea does have merit." Obviously, Orochimaru also didn't look forward to being questioned. With such a public marital spat, and someone using what appeared to be mokuton, _everyone_ was going to question them. Hell, Jiraiya's landlady was going to question him, and she couldn't even remember his name! 

"How about... Team InoShikaCho? They've been kinda uppity, lately, haven't they?" Another crash echoed in the background, as they prepared to get as much more information as they reasonably could. 

* * *

OMAKE

(Team Scapegoat) 

When his own students appeared in his office, wearing the traditional henge of Team Scapegoat, Sarutobi Hiruzen knew that it was going to be one of "those days". Whenever Team Scapegoat entered his office, it was guaranteed that they were bringing in information of the interesting variety, and were trying to keep from being later questioned about it. 

Team Scapegoat was a fine Konoha tradition, where the team bringing in special information henged as... well, a fairly ludicrous looking team, with far too many identifying features. Fuschia hair, a crescent shaped scar on one face, one with only one arm, another with a hook for a hand. Sarutobi wasn't sure what it said of his former team, that Orochimaru was always the kunoichi. (Whenever someone in Konoha says that "It was the one armed man!" they'll get a knowing smile in reply, and "Yeah, they always have the best stories" in a vexed tone.) 

The humor of their appearance aside, it was likely that they had something important to tell him. "What is it this time?" 

The story spilled out quickly. Apparently they had been in Tanzaku-Gai - drinking, though they refused to dwell on that - and a man and a woman there had gotten into a fight. Ordinarily, this wouldn't be something to report, even with how destructive they had been. The reason they were reporting this was... The man had used mokuton, an ability seemingly lost to the ninja world since Hashirama's death. 

He questioned them as thoroughly as he could, before sending them on to someone whose abilities would be able to pick up more than they would think too say - though he did have them show him what they had looked like (and practically had to suppress a nosebleed over the woman's appearance - yowza). 

The man was dark haired, dark eyed, and scarred terribly, with short hair gone shaggy. The woman was pale and unnaturally perfect looking. Either she wasn't human at all, or she was under some kind of disguise. Sarutobi almost scolded his students for missing that. 

"The woman," he said, tone dark and thoughtful. He waited for them to resume their "normal" appearances before continuing, and had an amused instant where Jiraiya and Tsunade fumbled and both looked like the same person before one of them gave up and changed again. They pointedly ignored that they were now opposite of who they'd been before. He chuckled around his pipe. "We can't assume anything about her appearance. Real people don't look like that." 

To give the ANBU listening in the credit deserved, he didn't leave immediately after the meeting to inform Danzo about the new development. Although Sarutobi wondered if he was going to have to tell the man not to molest the mystery ninjas (because he was sure that they had to be ninjas) before they could learn more about them. 

...perhaps he ought to have Jiraiya pay attention to rumors of them. It would give the man some much needed experience.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: "What do you mean, it's a complete transformation?!"
> 
> (I really wish I had more to add to this...)


	7. Why Don't You Change Back?!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the gender thing is starting to look a little ridiculous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You enabler, you. *glares*

"Well, that was fun, wasn't it?" There was a droll smile on Enoki's lips, as they sat on the remaining roof of the bar, beneath the rustling leaves of a tree that hadn't been there ten minutes before. 

Life, Tobi concluded, just wasn't fair. He had been in a horrible state all day, with Enoki being an utter jerk and doing things like draping all over him at random times. He had almost gotten used to seeing female-Enoki, almost, but... Enoki wouldn't stay at a distance. Tobi could think when Enoki wasn't _right there_ , hanging on him. Then he would get a whiff of that scent, the one that had him so distracted before that he couldn't even think too check his surroundings... "Fun?" he asked, dully. His hangover - barely worth noting when he had first woken, yet as the day progressed it only seemed to get worse - had barely even begun to recede, and even then, only with the application of hair-of-dog. "You're the only one having fun right now." 

"Maaa... Don't be that way." There Enoki went, leaning super close again, and Tobi gave up on trying to escape, and just focused on trying not to react. "Perhaps I went a little far..." she - no, he, because while the body might have been female, it was still Enoki - sighed. "It's not like I knew you were a virgin. I mean, if I found the time to try out sex, I just... figured that you would have as well." 

He tried so hard not to react, but that scent... that was what had been getting him all day. It felt like what little self-control he had was slipping away, further and further, the longer he could smell _that_. "Paranoid, with good reason," he replied, with a shuddery breath. "In my position, everyone had to be... treated with suspicion. I... Damnit. You're making it hard to think!" He shoved Enoki away. "I still can't... I can't figure out how you did that." 

"Mmm. I had a student who had created a jutsu that seemed... maa, silly and a little vulgar." A tiny smile played across Enoki's lips, and if Tobi just focused on his face, he didn't seem all that different. His lips were maybe a little fuller, his jawline more delicate, but over all... "If Naruto had known a little more about the human body, he could have done more with it. As it was... Those in the know jokingly referred to it as a Kage-killer." The smile was secretive - not at all different from usual, Tobi noted dryly. "What I did to you is really watered down." 

Pheromones. That smell was pheromones. The realization dawned slower than it should have. That was... "You..." his voice was strangled, and he made several abortive attempts to continue, but eventually settled for glaring. That was totally not fair. 

Enoki chuckled. "In the original form, the pheromones are so strong they can affect an asexual person - that is, one with a naturally low libido. You should be glad I watered it down, because otherwise, it probably would have knocked you out, leaving you to dream happy dreams." He arched an eyebrow, and added, "Very happy dreams." 

Tobi felt heat rise in his face. Happy dreams. Fuck. "You're an asshole," he muttered, covering his face. He really wanted to run away and hide right now, but Enoki wasn't letting him. 

"And you're too tense. That little bit should have barely gotten you, but since you got so worked up I had fun all day." Enoki threw an arm over Tobi's shoulders, while Tobi cringed. "But now that I'm thinking about it, that can't be healthy. Thirty years old," he clucked, shaking his head. 

The scent - the pheromones - seemed to mostly reside in Enoki's hair, he realized, and that didn't necessarily help him. "But the body..?" he asked, his voice thick in his throat. 

"Mmm..." Enoki shrugged. "You know me. I saw an unfinished work and tried to finish it. It's a full transformation, if you were wondering. I had to walk around a little last night to get used to it. It felt strange at first, and my reactions are still slightly off, but..." He shrugged again. "No chakra drain beyond the initial transformation. I'm wondering how long it will hold." 

"You're experimenting on yourself," he said flatly, glaring - or at least trying to - at Enoki's smiling face. "You're using an experimental transformation jutsu that could _kill_ you, and leave me with the kids. The kids, who already outnumber us by two to one." 

"It won't kill me," Enoki replied, rolling his eyes. "I've been working on this for several years, believe it or not. Besides... You think I'm attractive like this, don't you?" 

Tobi choked. "That's not..! That's not the point! How is that..?! That shouldn't even be part of your reasoning!" He would have flailed a bit, but Enoki pulled him into a headlock, and he froze, his head pressed against a soft breast. 

"It isn't," he said, his tone soft and reassuring. "The risks are quite low, and I've been planning to test it for a while. You just gave me the opportunity to harass you in the meantime. I wouldn't have done it if the risk were high. This gave me a reason to stop waffling on it. Honestly, I thought it would feel more weird..." Enoki was starting to sound thoughtful. "But it's still just me." 

Tobi snorted, then immediately regretted the amount of breath it had taken to do so. He was still in a headlock, and in the female body, for some reason, Enoki had a lot of hair that was... just... everywhere. He found himself whimpering yet again, even as his body relaxed into the hold. 

Enoki chuckled again. "You poor thing," he crooned. "I would offer to help you out, but... I highly suspect that it's time to vacate the country. Perhaps later. Leave a nice tip for the owner, because that was not so nice, destroying the bar, and then... We need to collect everyone and go." 

"Uh huh." 

There was another laugh as Enoki let go of his neck, but didn't immediately move away. "I can see why the seduction corps liked _that_ jutsu so much. You're so biddable..." 

"Uh huh." His voice hardly even sounded like him anymore, but he couldn't care less at the moment. Maybe... maybe Enoki wouldn't mind if he got closer? 

"And now it's getting weird," Enoki said, but still sounded amused. "It's the nuzzling. That's a little strange. Even from you." With a sound more like a snicker than the previous chuckles, Enoki moved to get up, stumbling a little when Tobi followed. He laughed outright. "Okay, a little too weird. You get to take care of the damages, if possible. If not, leave them enough ryo to compensate, alright?" 

"Uh huh." By the time his head cleared, Enoki was already gone, and in a state of mortification, Tobi set out to fix what he could of the damage he had wrought. 

* * *

Inexplicably, the next day dawned - this time in Tea Country - with Enoki looking different again. While still physically female, his hair was back to its usual length, and he looked a lot less... curvy, than he had the previous day. Oh, and the scar over his eye (fainter than it had been before they had come to the past, but still clearly visible) was back - Tobi hadn't even noticed that it had been gone. Cheerfully, he didn't so much as explain the difference. "And yet, you still find me attractive this way," Enoki said, leaving Tobi sputtering on the side of the road. 

Enoki wasn't wrong, but... It pissed Tobi off. While Enoki looked so much more like himself, his body was still distinctly female, and Tobi could _think_ today, unlike yesterday. And he was embarrassed, because yesterday, he had felt stupid all day. Especially when Enoki had been close. _Those damned pheromones..._ He grumbled under his breath as they walked. At this point, he could care less if they were heading toward civilization or not. He just needed to walk off his frustration. 

Nanashi, intelligent man that he was, kept his mouth shut on the subject, but the teenagers... that was a different story all together. Yuusuke, in particular, pointed out several times that Enoki had looked "hotter" the day before. Keiko eventually punched the boy in the face and walked ahead of the group, with the gender-switching weirdo. 

Today was looking to be as irritating as yesterday. 

* * *

Keiko couldn't figure the ninjas out - she knew they were ninjas because who else would act so strange, and pretend that it was perfectly normal? Tobi with, well, the teleporting and the kidnapping - which wasn't all that bad. Genkai was great, but taking care of four teens had to be pretty hard on someone her age. They had to travel anyway, so why not with people who could protect them? She was also suspicious that Tobi was what they called "functionally insane". Emphasis on the "insane" part, and much less on "functionally". Because if you're functional, you don't need a keeper, right? 

She had thought, that of the two of them, Enoki was approaching normal. But the past couple days... Yeah, she was beginning to doubt that. It was less that he wasn't crazy, and more that he was quietly crazy, which made them pay less attention to the strange things that occasionally came out of his mouth. Next to Tobi, he was deceptively normal seeming. 

"Isn't it weird?" she asked Enoki, doing her best to ignore the boys behind them - especially Yuusuke and his sulking face - and Ilfalna and Genkai, who were walking much closer. She didn't have much in common with the other girl, so she wasn't even sure if they could become friends, but she wanted to be able to talk to another girl. 

"Hmm? Is what weird?" Compared to yesterday, Enoki seemed tired, but then again, that could just be his - her? - face. There was always something in Enoki's expression that seemed to scream "I'm so done with these shenanigans" even when they were _his_ shenanigans. 

"Pretending to be a girl? Or whatever it is you're doing." She wasn't sure how he had done it, but if he used small words and bothered to try and explain it, she thought she could understand. 

"Pretend..? It's... different," he said, shrugging. "I thought it would be weird, but it isn't really." 

"Different isn't weird?" Keiko looked up at him. Whether or not he was actually physically female - according to Tobi, he was, and she wasn't sure if she wanted to know why Tobi knew - Enoki was still nearly six feet tall. For a woman, that kind of height was ridiculous, and made him seem like he was looming, even though he stood with the same hunched posture that he usually did. It was weird, because as a man, six feet hadn't seemed nearly as tall. 

"Not really. Different is something to get used to. Weird is... mmmm... weird." Whatever that meant. "Uncomfortable, perhaps." 

Consternated, she scowled up at him. He wasn't being very clear. "Then... is being a guy weird?" 

"Should it be?" he asked, arching an eyebrow at her. 

"Well, if being a girl isn't weird, then shouldn't being a guy be weird?" She thought it would be anyway. They had _penises_ and she was just young enough to think that that was the weirdest thing ever. 

He gave her a look that implied that he thought that _she_ was being strange. "I was born that way, so why would it be weird?" 

She sighed, still scowling. "So you aren't transgender?" 

"...where would you get that impression?" He seemed honestly confused, and if she hadn't already had that revelation about his relative state of sanity, that would bother her more. 

Right behind them, in a quiet, but remarkably sarcastic tone, Ilfalna said, "I wonder what possibly could have given her that impression." 

Enoki looked down at himself, contemplative, and blinked several times. "Riiiiight. Sorry, my bad. I forgot already." 

"You..." Keiko coughed, and she could hear Genkai grumbling to herself. "How could you forget? Your body..! Didn't you guys say it was an actual transformation? You've only been like this for a little over a day, right? You can't tell me that you forgot that quickly that you aren't the right gender!" 

Enoki stared in silence for a long moment. "...nope. I definitely forgot. It's still just me." 

Even though Nanashi and Tobi weren't close to them at all, she could still hear Nanashi's flat "Is he for real?" 

* * *

OMAKE

(flashback) 

He had been hoping to catch the Kage Bushin, but instead, the Sharingan caught something entirely different. Before the pheromone cloud hit him, he laughed in surprise... Then he wasn't laughing at all. Quickly, Kakashi formed the handseals for a basic Fuuton jutsu, blasting the pheromone cloud and the shape-changed preteen away, toward the tree line. 

That had been no mere henge. He pulled his hitai-ate back down, with a sigh, as the cogs in his brain did what they always did. There was a reason why he was "Sharingan Kakashi", and fifty other monikers to similar effect, and no Uchiha had been given a similar honor. He didn't merely copy techniques. He analyzed them. He broke them apart until they were something he could and would use. 

The more he analyzed Naruto's "Oiroke no Jutsu" the more ironically apt the name seemed. He was about to dismiss the brats for the day when he saw _it_. Were it not fresh, he would have dismissed it as something from a previous team's training. The handprint wasn't large, but it also wasn't as small as that of a child. It was the handprint of a full grown woman. 

When the other two left, he called Naruto back, and the boy bounced back merrily, probably thinking that he was going to get some special training. "That jutsu. You are going to tell me everything about it. Everything - from how you originally came up with it, to the seals you use, to _how_ you use it, to how you've messed it up, to a report of every single time you've used it." He stayed smiling, even as Naruto's enthusiastic expression cracked. _It really is true, what they say about me,_ he mused. _I_ do _feed on the suffering of others... especially when I'm training them._

* * *

It was no wonder that the brat had learned the Kage Bushin in only a few hours. The Oiroke was a work of art. A demented work of art. Pure, unadulterated, ridiculous genius. The chakra shell, the most difficult part of the Kage Bushin, was something that the brat had already known how to make. 

Chakra molding wasn't a common art for a reason. There were no basic techniques that used it. None. It wasn't that no one had tried to make low level techniques that used it. Techniques that could be built upon over time. Kakashi sighed, getting up and letting his feet take him where they wanted to go. While he wandered, half-aimlessly, he thought about the magnitude of what Naruto had so thoughtlessly created. 

In time, if someone took the time to teach him, the Rasengan wouldn't be beyond his reach. In fact, Kakashi would bet that he would set a record, and probably surpass his father by perfecting the technique. 

Because Naruto was capable of inventing a foundation level chakra molding technique that would give him an intuitive grasp of anything higher. 

...and that was without getting into the other aspects of the Oiroke. Aspects that Kakashi would dwell on for some time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: "I Forgot."


	8. "I Forgot."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Enoki confuses and frustrates everyone... then Tobi makes a run for the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That enabler is at it again.  
> (Lucky for the rest of you, right?)

Enoki didn't see what the problem was. Male or female, once he was used to it, or even mostly used to it, it was just his body. Admittedly, he hadn't planned on staying female for long - the only real point to it was to see how long the transformation would hold. And he had expected to be uncomfortable, so staying female wasn't his original plan. "I'm not sure that this deserves such a reaction," he sighed scrubbing his fingers through the hair at the back of his head (internally, he would probably always be "he", breasts or no, because it was what he was used to - call it social conditioning). 

Genkai was a bit red from a coughing fit she had moments after he had confirmed forgetting - which he _had done_ , because he was almost used to the way his body was moving now, though it was less "forgetting" and more "not remembering". It reminded him of recovering from an injury, where it no longer hurts, but you've forgotten how to move normally. "Enoki-san, I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but most men and women would be _very_ uncomfortable if their genders were changed." Keiko shot the elderly woman a grateful look. The girl had probably been getting out of her depth, trying to make conversation with someone as _weird_ as Enoki. 

"Maa, if I hadn't done it to myself, I would probably be uncomfortable too," he replied agreeably. It would be discombobulating, if he could use it as an attack, he supposed. If nothing else, it would take the enemy a minute or two to figure out how to move with their center of gravity changed like that, not to mention the bone structure. Admittedly, he had _expected_ to be more uncomfortable than he had been. "But since I did do it to myself, there's no reason for me to be bothered." 

He could see that even Genkai, who was old enough that she should have the patience to deal with his lack of understanding (which was less a lack of understanding than it was his not recognizing that it should apply to _him_ ), was growing frustrated. "Enoki-san. Let's break for lunch, shall we?" 

Fifteen minutes later, the adults sat to one side with the infants, while the teens and the two younger kids sat a ways away, casting suspicious looks at them while they ate a simple lunch. Enoki let Indara eat one of his rice balls, figuring it was mild enough that it couldn't harm the infant. He could admit that he had something of a soft spot for Sasuke, while he had been on his team. There was too much hurt in the kid for Enoki not to see it, to not see himself in Sasuke... He hadn't been near the sensei those kids had deserved. 

Still, it was nice, seeing him now, as Indara, such a cheerful baby, sharing his prize with Asura. "He's such a sweet baby," he said, amused. Because as much as Indara didn't really look like his previous incarnation, he was still reminded, somehow, of Sasuke offering his bento to Naruto during their test - the first gesture of camaraderie between the members of the former Team 7. 

"Yet, he's probably the one who shit in the bath," Tobi replied, skeptical as always of any good behavior the twins exhibited. 

"Maybe, maybe," Enoki agreed. There was pretty much a fifty percent chance of that. As he watched, Indara rolled his part of the rice ball over a cricket. Yummy. "Oh look, he's eating a cricket." 

"Don't know, don't care," Tobi said. As if to make a point of it, he turned his head away from where Asura smashed his part between his hands, getting sticky bits of rice everywhere. They were going to be finding rice on him for days. Tobi glanced sharply his way. "Explain to me how you could forget that you're under a transformation, would you?" 

Enoki blinked at him, then at Nanashi and Genkai, who all watched him expectantly. They obviously didn't intend to let this go. "Maaa... Is it really that important?" Why were they bothering him about this? 

"Not important," Tobi conceded, "just weird." 

"Is it?" 

"Yes," said Genkai and Nanashi at once. Nanashi seemed uncomfortable with the whole thing, whereas Genkai was confused and somewhat irritated - possibly from lack of understanding. 

"It's just my body," he repeated. That was the only explanation he had. 

"Just your body?" asked Genkai, filling her pipe. "What do you mean by that?" 

"Maa..." Despite his own laconic nature, he found himself growing irritated as well. "My body is just... It's what I use to interact with the world. So long as it's in working order, what it looks like doesn't particularly matter." Honestly, he could be a dog, and so long as he could do the same things he normally did, he was sure he'd be fine with it. Actually, being a dog wouldn't be that bad - he was already canine enough as it was. "It's a tool - one of the most important ones I'll ever have, but in the end, that's all it is." 

The others didn't seem to know what to make of that, but Genkai eventually murmured, deep in thought, "You're an old soul, aren't you? Awkward creature that you are." Thankfully, they finally dropped the subject, though Enoki was sure it would come up again. He hoped it wouldn't be for a long while. 

* * *

Camping beneath the stars was quite nice. With the largish group they had assembled, it was better, Enoki thought, to not be in towns so much. Even though the Elemental Nations were at war, they hadn't much difficulty so far in avoiding conflicts. He wondered if that was what they should be doing. Shinobi or not, Enoki preferred to be straightforward about most things, and not knowing "the Plan", if Tobi even had one yet, was starting to bother him. "What are we doing?" he asked, softly enough that it could be missed or ignored easily. 

Tobi rarely ignored Enoki. "I don't know," he replied, understanding the question even without context. "The elements of a plan are there, I'm sure of it, but..." 

"Nothing's coming together," Enoki surmised. "Other than train the brats. So we really are just wandering aimlessly... I had been beginning to think as much." Tobi growled and kicked at him, and Enoki blocked the halfhearted attack easily. 

"I know what we need to do," said Tobi, plowing over Enoki's muttering, because _damnit_ , it wasn't like he didn't know too. "Like I said, all the elements are there. I'm just... not sure yet how to accomplish it. I even know how long we have... We have to get it done before age does us in. We'll be useless if we wait too long." 

"So if she gets out around the same time, we'll be... over fifty." Enoki snorted. "Nope. If it takes that long, I'm sidelining myself." 

"Weak." Tobi kicked at him again. "Fifty isn't that old for an accomplished ninja." 

"If we only grow stronger," Enoki replied, aware of eyes - Genkai and Nanashi, as was becoming usual - on him. "I don't know about you, but... at this point, I'm probably not going to get much stronger. My mind has room enough to grow, but my body?" He shook his head. "I feel like at our age it's downhill from here." 

"You're such a pessimist," sighed Tobi. "Although... hmmm. Well, it doesn't have to just be the twins, right? I mean, I'm having a thought, and it's probably a bad idea, but..." 

"Hmmm?" 

"There's all these freaks we could be training." Tobi grinned broadly. There was a mutinous mutter from the kids, that they pretty much ignored. 

"I'm a shitty teacher," Enoki replied, thinking of Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura. Sure, they became powerful, but... They certainly hadn't been the most stable of people. Naruto was, but that was mostly a testament to the boy's strength of will. It was obvious in retrospect what went wrong with Sasuke, but Sakura... She had something that closely resembled split personalities, and he had never looked into it for a thousand and one reasons that all sounded trite in his head. 

"You're an excellent teacher," Tobi countered. By this point, no one else in camp even pretended to be doing anything but listening to them. "They were three of the greatest shinobi the world has seen, even if one was a psycho." Tobi couldn't condemn Sasuke's issues without sounding like a hypocrite, and he didn't even try. He just said it like it was fact. "Besides, we're both from an unbroken apprentice line of great shinobi. There are few better than those who came before us, and those who are better are those that came after. You know it." 

Enoki frowned. From a certain viewpoint, Tobi's words made sense, even if he didn't quite agree. It had been _their_ determination, no matter how it had been aimed... All he had done was point them in what he thought was the right direction. And he hadn't always been right. "Perhaps we could..." Could what? Make beings on the level of Kaguya? Possibly make _monsters_ , demons and gods the like of which the world has never seen? "We could train up more than the boys, I suppose." He kept his tone reserved, because... He was sure of Asura. Asura would grow up to be a good, powerful man. If they didn't allow Indara to be manipulated, he probably would as well. But others? 

"I'm sure even these brats could become... _something_ , anyway. Maybe not great, but..." Tobi was looking at their little entourage more closely than usual, examining them for flaws, perhaps. "We could collect more of them - little beasts with the mental strength to become great..." Enoki wasn't sure he liked where this was going. "Hey! If civilian teachers can handle like, thirty students at a time," Enoki grew mildly alarmed as Tobi seemed to get more excited, "we could potentially handle three times as many!" 

Disbelievingly, Enoki said, trying to keep his tone mild, "You've never taught, have you?" 

"What makes you say that?" The disturbing part was that Tobi was actually serious. He was also apparently unaware of the looks on Genkai and Nanashi's faces. It was obvious that those two have had students before. 

"Once you have a set of monsters of your own, you often exist in a state somewhere between alcoholism and the desire to murder the little bastards yourself." It was a precarious balance that Enoki knew quite well. "You have a hard enough time with the boys as they are. Add ten years and an insubordinate attitude, and how do you expect to be able to handle them then? Besides, if you take on more than three at a time, you tend to lose quality. Wasn't that your complaint about the way the academy works?" 

"Oh right..." He was quiet for long enough that Enoki almost thought that he was going to let go of the idea, and without him speaking, their little camp was almost eerily silent. "But even three at a time," Tobi mused. "We could still do it - make monsters that actually have a chance against _her_. Knowing what's coming is our biggest advantage, and we can't rightfully let it slip away..." He shrugged. "I didn't say it was a good idea, though, did I?" 

"I wouldn't mind passing on what I know," said Genkai. "If you're going to do whatever it is you're doing, you'll need more teachers, and I may not look it, but I have much to teach." 

"Eh?" Enoki wasn't alone, giving the old woman a sharp look. Nanashi's was more thoughtful, almost considering, whereas Tobi's expression was clearly consternated. "At the most basic level, the idea isn't a bad one," he said, rolling his eyes at Tobi. "It all depends on the execution of it. These brats..." He glanced over at said brats, internally debating what he was going to say. Other than Asura and Indara - and he already knew, on some level, what would happen with them - there were the three teenage boys, two teenaged girls of about the same age, one of whom was not only pregnant, but obviously so, and... Yuffie and Kotaro, who were somewhere between four and six. Probably. And of the entire lot of them... "Ilfalna and Yuffie have talent, but I'm not so sure about the rest of them..." 

And that started a debate that lasted late into the night. 

* * *

On some level, everyone in the group made sense to Kotaro, with one exception. Loud Yuffie with her Kuchiyose made sense - and it was so cool to have someone his age to play with. Genkai-baachan made sense, with her scowling, intelligent face and her pipe. The older boys, Yuusuke, Shuichi and Kazuma made sense, even if Yuusuke was kind of a jerk. Keiko was nice, but she came across as strong - especially when she popped Yuusuke right in the nose - so she made sense too. Of course, it would be weird if Kotaro fit and Nanashi didn't, so the rounin fit in just fine. Then there were the leaders - both crazy and weird and strong, but it was _their_ group. 

The one who didn't make sense was Ilfalna. She was nice in a way Keiko wasn't. Nice in a way Kotaro didn't really understand. And she was _soft_. She couldn't fight like the rest of them. Even when she smacked one of them, it never really hurt. She smacked Kotaro often enough that he knew this. She was defenceless, for all but the look on her face. She was really good at making you feel guilty, but... 

He supposed that she must be running from something. All of them seemed to be, except Tobi and Enoki. The only ones he knew for sure about was him and Nanashi, and they were using this group, this alliance that they seemed to have, to get away from what was after them. Kotaro was pretty sure that that blond mercenary was more after Nanashi these days, but he was still wigged out that the man had survived. 

Kotaro stuck out his tongue at Yuusuke, because the older boy was making faces at Ilfalna again. Something about his manly pride being hurt by the fact that a weak girl had more talent than him. Kotaro wasn't angry over being dismissed in favor of Yuffie, so he figured the older boy should just suck it up. 

He stopped when a gloved hand landed on his head, and he looked up to see Enoki's blandly amused face. Enoki was _still_ a woman, and it had been over a week. Kotaro wondered if he was stuck like that. "Here, take this," Enoki said, shoving something into Kotaro's hand, "and go on, knock yourself out." 

He was shoved in the direction of the market, and was already walking, Tobimaru at his heels, before he checked to see what Enoki had given him. It was a wad of cash. Kotaro counted it, and... "That's a lot of money," he mumbled, turning toward Yuffie, who was staring at her own handful, agape. What kind of responsible adult would give a kid his age that much money? He shook his head at the thought. Responsible, right. As much as he respected them, "responsible" wasn't a good word to describe them. "C'mon, there's a market." 

He dragged Yuffie away before he could wonder why they had so much money. He suspected that if he mentioned it, some of it would be taken back. 

Kotaro hoped that they kept up that kind of behavior. Even this amount put a lot toward their travel funds, for when he and Nanashi and Tobimaru inevitably went their own way, but more would always be appreciated. Maybe... maybe they didn't understand the worth of it? Well, no matter. As long as it profited him, he would be the last to point it out. 

* * *

OMAKE

Genkai was many things. Ancient - by human standards - was one of those things. Grouchy - by most people's standards - was another. Knowledgeable. Wise. She'd had the time to accumulate both knowledge and wisdom. She was old enough to remember, if faintly, the Warring Clans period - she had been a miko in training when the wars ended. She was probably one of the few people alive who could do so whose life wasn't extended by unnatural means. 

She had never met anyone quite like these two idiots. 

"I want to see something," she said, nudging at Enoki until he stopped what he was doing. "Sit with me." She cleared a spot on the wooden floor for herself, gesturing for him to do the same. With an indulgent smile, he sat, unbothered by the golden stands of hay that littered the floor. 

She rolled her eyes and made another sharp gesture, this time with her pipe. The smoke curled slowly into a pattern in front of him as she gathered a sort of chakra used only by miko and hoshi. These days, such chakra users were becoming rarer and rarer. "So what exactly are you doing?" he asked, watching interestedly. 

"I'm checking your 'yin and yang' balance - or rather, one of those many things people mean when they say 'yin and yang'." Specifically, she was curious as to the male/female balance of his spirit. "It's one of those things that's all important to a miko or a hoshi, but to a ninja or samurai, it's nothing but an intellectual curiosity. For me, this balance is something I had to struggle for. It does not come naturally to me... As for you..." She brought her pipe back to her mouth and puffed at it. It was as she thought. His balance was _perfect_. "You are a personal insult." 

He shot her one of those disgruntled and confused looks that he usually spared for the children. "...thanks?" 

She smacked him with her pipe. "Don't thank me, moron. It's your inborn nature that I find insulting." 

"Oh," he replied with a smile. "That makes it better. My 'inborn nature' seems to frustrate a lot of people, so I know how to deal with that." 

She snorted. "I'm sure the particular aspect I'm frustrated with is unique, or else you'd already know of it." That kind of balance was something that it took her years to achieve, and this idiot just sat there, without a care, naturally in _balance_. What an asshole. The only reason he even had a gender identity was because of social conditioning. "And you probably wouldn't be interested in learning the spiritual arts..." 

"Not true," he replied. "I've always been vaguely interested. I just... didn't have the initiative to seek a teacher." 

The fucker just had to make it worse. Tobi's voice came from above her head, "Did you ever look for one for becoming a ninja?" She didn't even sense him come up behind her. 

"No. Father taught me at first, and I proved adept. A couple generations earlier, I might have become a samurai. So long as the job was intellectually stimulating enough, I would have been happy. Anything chakra related I could have done well as." He blinked up at his friend, Genkai momentarily forgotten. "Maa... What's something more or less civilian that I could have done..? I think I could have been happy as a librarian." He held up two fingers in a victory sign. "Unrestricted access to books!" 

Genkai hit him with her pipe again. "Now you're just being an ass!" 

He cringed slightly, hands held up in surrender. "I'm not denying that, but... I was aiming it at him!" 

"Well you got me," she replied, scowling, as Tobi chuckled. "So you actually want to learn..? Very well. I'll teach you."


	9. Traveling Woes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone is weird.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I can't do summary. Or title. Or story. Or format. Sorry. :))

When the kids came back from spending the money they had been given, it occurred to Tobi that they weren't traveling very smart. It was all very haphazard, which isn't a problem for ninjas, but for civilian brats, and their numbers, it was getting rather awkward. For all that he could - and he did - use Kamui as a personal storage space, the kids couldn't. 

While Enoki entertained the youngest strays by pretending that he didn't know what a yo-yo was - or maybe he wasn't pretending, heaven knows that he hadn't had much of a childhood - Tobi found himself amused that _his_ brats were on leashes. "That's okay?" he asked Genkai, who sat comfortably under the small tree their leashes were attached to, reading a book. "That's not considered child abuse?" 

"They can't even figure out why they can't get away from the tree. So long as they remain unharmed, they're fine. I've got my eye on them." She flipped the page and let out a muted chuckle, still absorbed in the book. 

"Hey, Enoki! Did you know that it's okay to tie up the kids?" he shouted, and the other barely even raised his head. 

"Yeah," he replied, distracted. He was still fiddling with the yo-yo. "Tobi? The brats are too busy laughing. Please explain?" He held up the toy expectantly. "Is it some kind of weapon? What is it?" 

Tobi palmed his face. Enoki _had_ been being serious. "It's... a toy. You wind up the string and it spins on the end." 

"Yeah," giggled Yuffie, trying to take it. She probably intended to show Enoki how it was done, but he raised it out of her reach, following Tobi's brief instruction. 

In near perfect execution, Enoki flicked the toy at the ground and watched it spin on the end of the string before coming back to rest in his hand. "Hmmm. Applied physics?" he muttered, flicking it again. "I see. It seems rather boring now that I know what it does..." With a smirk, he flicked it at Tobi's face, and it came to stop mere inches away, before spinning back to Enoki. 

Tobi just blinked at him calmly. "You didn't think I hadn't already noted the length of the string, did you?" 

"No, I was just hoping for a reaction. You suck." Then, for some reason, he wiggled his eyebrows at Tobi. 

It took him longer than it should have, to recognize the frankly _stupid_ innuendo. He kicked at Enoki and turned to stomp off. The little shit was bothering him less and less, but it was still irritating. Their traveling situation seemed more important anyway, than the background whining of the kids who wouldn't get their toy back until Enoki was as bored with it as he claimed, and the irritating prickle of a certain prick's gaze following him a he stomped around. (And maybe he stomped a bit more than necessary. It was almost fun, after a point.) 

How did civilians normally get places? Didn't they usually use wagons? Ugh. There had to be a better way than that. Riiiight. All the better ways he knew of were ninja ways. "We need a wagon," he told Genkai, unleashing the babies in order to pick them up. Indara immediately gave him an angelic look, then loudly broke wind. It was such an airy sound that it was obviously just that. A string of unintelligible babble followed the sound. "Seriously? I'm beginning to wonder what we're feeding you." He gave Asura a suspicious look, but picked him up as well. "Don't you go doing anything to make me regret this..." Asura latched onto his neck with a sort of force that filled him with dread. "Oh, that's comforting. Either you've already done something, or you got something in the works..." 

"A wagon, hmm?" Genkai looked up at him with an amused glint in her eyes that he was beginning to think of as "the grandma look". "Why would you need a wagon?" 

"Less... haphazard than what we're already doing." He shrugged. "Since we _aren't_ ninjas, we shouldn't travel like ninjas, right?" Not that he was going to stop using Kamui at a whim. They could, at least, make some kind of attempt to look like they were anything but what they were, though. 

"The teleporting seems rather useful," she said, somehow giving him the impression that she'd pissed if he stopped doing it. He could understand that. She was approaching ancient - though he had no idea how old she was - and probably deserved a little ease in her life. 

"I just want us to look vaguely normal. Walking into towns as we are looks suspicious. And I'm not about to drop us _in_ towns. That's something I could pull off alone, but not with this large of a group." Actually, the size of the group was getting a little strenuous. His chakra reserves could only handle so much shuffling the lot of them around via Kamui. It wasn't like Kaguya's dimensions, but his reserves weren't unlimited, no matter what it looked like. "So yeah..." 

"Well, if you want a wagon," she speculated, closing the book around her finger - he determinedly didn't twitch when he saw the familiar orange cover (the books weren't even published yet, and probably wouldn't be for years, so it could only be Enoki's copy), "you're going to need horses." 

Horses. He hadn't actually thought that far. "I suppose..." He was interrupted by Asura's loud giggle, and a sudden stench and a warmth against his arm. Tobi sighed. Asura, at least, needed changed, and if he was poopy, chances were Indara would be soon. "I only just picked you up..! What is your problem?!" 

Genkai laughed at him. 

* * *

"Why would you take us somewhere so boring?" whined a preadolescent voice. "I can't see anything but grass, and I haven't seen anything but grass all day." 

"Stop bitching," snapped Genkai. "I'm not much taller than you, and you don't hear me whining. Fuck this noise. Tobi, when we get the horses, we're getting some for riding, too. I'm not sitting in a wagon all day with these little fuckers." 

_Old people are so funny when they cuss..._ Tobi withheld a snicker, mostly because Genkai _would_ hit him with her pipe if she felt he was being disrespectful. "I don't see a problem with that." Granted, he and Enoki would have to sell more sealwork to make sure they had enough cash, but considering where they were going, it shouldn't be difficult to find custom. "Are you sure you want a horse, though? A pony might be more appro... ow!" 

Genkai glared at him, putting her pipe back into her mouth. "What was that, boy?" 

"Nothing, nothing..! Geez, that stung like a bitch." How did she even hit him? Tobi scowled, pausing to rub his thigh. Since they were going to Kusa, it wouldn't hurt to get some proper gear, too. Civilian clothes did nothing to protect against even such minor attacks. 

"It would be nice to have a horse again," said Nanashi, thankfully derailing the complaint Tobi had been about to voice. "And the children should probably be taught some basic tracking, for when they inevitably spook the horses..." 

Tobi was more than willing to concede the point, but his eyes turned to Enoki, who had been conspicuously quiet since the thing with the yo-yo. The other seemed hardly present at all, distracted by some internal train of thought, perhaps. And he didn't look well. There was a tension in the lines around his mouth and eyes that Tobi hadn't noticed before. "Enoki?" 

"Hmm?" Enoki looked up, then smiled and shrugged. "Tracking sounds like an excellent start, Nanashi-san." 

Ilfalna tugged at Tobi's sleeve, distracting him from his contemplation. "Tobi-san, how close are we to the village? The one where we're supposed to get horses?" She looked tired, too, and he almost felt bad for making her walk so much. 

Almost. She may have been visibly pregnant, but she wasn't so far along that it was causing her difficulty beyond regular potty breaks. And they really were taking it easy, even by civilian standards. "A few days out. Why?" There were indignant squawks behind them, and Tobi gave her his best angelic smile - which, admittedly, probably came across as at least a little fiendish. 

Then came the expected explosion. Not from Ilfalna, nor from the other adults - who had likely known. Not from the youngest children who were old enough to voice their complaints. It was Genkai's teenagers, in all the drama of youth - "Three days?!" squealed Keiko, while Shuichi drooped dramatically, making the saddest puppy eyes that Tobi had seen on anything older than ten (he refused to count Enoki. just. ever. - the man had some of the most ridiculously sad faces known to humankind). 

"Yuffie's right," said Yuusuke - like pulling teeth, because he and the young girl were forever at odds. "I haven't seen anything but grass all morning. I can't believe that there's a town out here somewhere!" 

"I see a tree," pointed out Kazuma, only to get kicked by the other boy. "No, really, it's right there." On cue, everyone who was tall enough to see over the grass turned the way he was pointing... even Tobi. And there was a tree. 

"You've got good eyes," Tobi commented. It was barely visible in the distance, but there was probably water there as well. "Alright, we're heading for the tree. We'll camp there tonight." 

"How far away is it?" asked Keiko, warily. 

"... Oh... about five miles, give or take. It's a little hard to measure by eye in grasslands." So they made their merry way, a little slower than before, with Nanashi pointing out animal trails as they went. The complaints were fewer too, now that the brats had something to focus on. 

* * *

The babies were acting weird. Really weird. Weird was the only word he found acceptable for it. Someone had laid them on a blanket, facing each other, once they settled in for the night, and they were giggling as they, in tandem, did pushups. One went up, and the other went down. It was strangely hypnotic. 

"But why are they giggling?" asked Kotaro, crouched next to him with his dog. On Tobi's other side, Yuffie grunted in agreement. 

"If I knew, I probably wouldn't be watching," Tobi replied. The three of them crouched in similar positions - and the brats were probably mocking him - with their arms looped around their knees as they watched. Tobi cringed when he realized that one of the babies was off time. They weren't _quite_ moving in tandem anymore. It wouldn't be long before they moved in time with each other. 

Even for a baby, that couldn't be that entertaining, could it? 

Somewhere on the other side of the camp, he could hear Ilfalna talking. "Should I tell them that that's normal, and babies sometimes just do that?" 

"I'll tell them," Enoki replied, though his voice was an amused murmur. It was weird to think that Enoki actually knew more about babies than him. Really weird. Almost as weird as knowing that the pushups game was something that all babies did. "Call it self-training," said Enoki a moment later, right behind Tobi. 

"Self-training?" asked Yuffie, craning her head around to look Enoki in the eye. "What are they training for?" 

"Pushing themselves off the ground so they can walk," he said, still sounding amused. "They usually do it when they're getting ready to crawl, too." 

The thought of the twins (even though they weren't technically twins, it was easy to think of them that way) walking was a horrifying one. "I'm not ready for that!" Tobi's voice squeaked slightly. "I can barely keep up with them with them crawling! Someone... hey, Yuffie, go stop them. Knock them over or something." 

"No!" she shouted, and Enoki laughed for several seconds before pressing his clenched first to his side with a scowl. "That's mean! I won't do it!" She punched him in the shoulder with all her might - which wasn't much, given that she was four (or six, if she wasn't lying). 

But Tobi wasn't paying attention to her anymore. His focus was the pained look Enoki had a moment before. "Are you alright?" 

His genuine concern was met with an unhappy, distinctly toothy grin. "Do you really want to know?" There was a growl to Enoki's voice that was more alarming than the grin. 

"Not when you have that tone of voice," Tobi replied, and to his confusion, the creepy grin melted into a real smile. 

"Alright then," Enoki said, and walked away. 

The three of them sat in utter silence for a long, drawn out minute. The silence was broken by a gulping sound before Kotaro said, "That was freaky." 

"Uh huh," Tobi replied, in a small voice. He told himself, quite firmly, that he didn't want to know what was bothering Enoki. 

* * *

An hour later, in a charitable fit, he made a move to remove the leeches from Enoki - the youngest five members of the party, including the dog, seemed to think that Enoki's nap time was a good time/place for them to nap as well - only to be growled at again. "Leave them alone," Enoki said, waving him away. "If they're sleeping, they aren't screaming, and it's not like I _mind_." 

So he left them alone, although he was a bit miffed, and went to find something else to do. He had been trying to do something _nice_ , for crying out loud. 

Since they were heading to a ninja village, and he wanted to get certain supplies, he decided to make a "shopping" list. After all, who knew when they would be in a proper ninja village again, and he didn't want to forget anything important once they got there. 

a wagon

  
horses

  
horse tack/wagon harness

  
proper cooking supplies

  
ninja gear/armored "civilian" clothes

  
extra clothes

  
food

Some things were more obvious than others, he reflected. Others, were a little less so. 

  
~~kidnap~~ a medic-nin,  hire  


There really was no telling what kinds of problems any one of them might have. A health check was a must. He was sure that Yuffie, at least, still had some manner of parasites, and Kotaro could as well - and who knew about Nanashi. The man was certainly thin enough to be absolutely riddled with parasites. Even he and Enoki should probably be checked - they could always brainwash the medic if they discovered anything _sensitive_. It's not like it would be hard, especially with the Mangekyo. 

They should probably get stuff for sealing scrolls, too, if only to be used as storage... 

blank scrolls

  


  
ink

  
brushes/calligraphy sets/table?

  
learner's kits? for the kids?

  
schooling books???

  
~~fucking kids~~  


That's it. He gave up. He was about to throw the crumpled list into the fire when he saw Asura crawl past, moving at top speed. Dragging Enoki's obi. Knowing Enoki, he was still asleep (the man's situational awareness seemed rather spotty at times - that was something that Tobi really ought to worry about). "...shit..." 

He knew where to go first - bring Enoki a blanket, because he was _still_ running around as a woman (and privately, Tobi was beginning to share the kids' suspicion that Enoki was having trouble turning himself back), and the kids didn't need to be flashed. _No matter how some,_ he noted darkly, _might like that. That little bastard._

He grabbed the dirty minded teen in question by the collar, and dragged him and his stick (and really? no, really? he had honestly thought Yuusuke was more mature than _that_ ) away for a private little chat. 

"Ne, Yuusuke-chan," he began, leaning over just enough to throw his arm over the by-now-thoroughly-psyched-out teen's shoulders. "I feel as though there's something I need to tell you about my dear friend over there. I know you're all hormonal, and have a hard time thinking past the fact that he's got breasts at the moment, but I want you to listen good... See, Enoki has been a ninja since he was five or six years old. Do you know what that means?" 

Yuusuke shook his head, eyes wide as he tried to cringe away. 

"No? Well, let me try another point. He spent a decade as an assassin. His signature attack -" He paused to tap Yuusuke on the chest, above his heart. "- is to put his fist through his opponent's chest. Right here. The number of people who are fast enough to dodge this attack are few and far between, and any one of them would choose to dodge, rather than block. Now, he might have found what you were attempting to do amusing. He's certainly perverse enough. I don't know if you've noticed, but... I wouldn't count on it. He's been in a pretty bad mood this week, and if he thinks you'd pull the same shit on Ilfalna..." 

Tobi let Yuusuke finish the sentence in his own head. He knew the intended threat found its target when the boy blanched and gulped. 

"Consider this a warning. I'll let you go through with it next time." Roughly, he shoved the blanket he had been carrying into the boy's hands. "I'm sure you know what to do with this." 

He watched covertly as Yuusuke did as he was told, covering the gently snoring Enoki (fuck situational awareness, how was that man even alive?) with the blanket, and once he was satisfied, he made his way back to the fire. Once there, he stared at the rock he had intended to sit on, wondering... There was something else... something else that seemed important, but he couldn't quite grasp... 

"Fuck, Asura!" 

* * *

Yuffie had been insistent that she could handle watching the twins until breakfast was made, so Tobi resolutely ignored Asura's crawling down a fox burrow, even as Yuffie searched for him amongst the bed rolls in the opposite side of camp. She kept tripping up Shuichi and Kazuma, who were trying to help pack things up. 

He had the vague sense that Enoki had disappeared to bathe - and subtly, Tobi checked to make sure that the little peeping tom was still in sight - and wouldn't be back for a while. He'd had an exasperated way about him before his disappearance, like he was about to throw his hands into the air and declare himself done with whatever was bothering him now. Tobi really wondered about Enoki sometimes, but just like the night before, he told himself that he wasn't going to ask. 

Nanashi yawned from his place in front of the fire, mechanically stirring whatever-was-in-the-pot. Breakfast seemed like a mystery today, and Tobi half wished that Enoki was the one cooking. Usually, with him you could tell what you were getting before it was served. With Nanashi, sometimes you couldn't tell what it had been, even while you were eating it. Tobi would wonder why they let the man cook... except that he knew. They were all taking turns, and Nanashi wasn't quite bad enough for them to skip him. 

So Tobi was at loose ends. There was nothing that demanded his attention - unless keeping a vague eye on the antics of the twins counted - so he found his mind wandering. And wandering. Irritatingly enough, his mind's favorite subject had to be Enoki. And the fact that Enoki was gone, taking a bath. Probably naked right now. Or... He was coming back. Not naked, but damned close. 

His shirt was thrown over his shoulder, and his chest was bare... And thankfully, finally, he was back to normal, or else Tobi would have probably overreacted to him showing back up at camp half naked. Enoki slunk across camp, dropping his shirt on Tobi's head as he passed, and over to the small pile that had been made of his things while Tobi was still trying to decide how to react. 

He balled the shirt up and chucked it back at its owner. "Oi! What the hell?" 

"I thought you might like it," Enoki said sweetly, "given that I'm done with it. It doesn't fit across the shoulder any more. Apparently I've gained weight." 

"What makes you think it would fit me?" Tobi asked, scowling at Enoki. "You're a _scarecrow_." For all they were about the same height, Tobi probably had a good fifty pounds on Enoki. Even if Enoki _had_ gained weight - a claim that Tobi found dubious - it wasn't a dent on the difference between them. Tobi had always been more solidly built than the other man. Even when they were children. "Disproportionate head included." 

Enoki gave him one of his patented incredulous looks. "That's my hair," he complained, dumping the contents of a scroll onto a quietly giggling Indara. It was a mess of cloth that Enoki then began to pick through. "I think I didn't take into account that my clothes might stop fitting..." 

"It'll probably fit Nanashi," he pointed out, only to have Nanashi give him a pointed look. Apparently he didn't want to be volunteered as a recipient of Enoki's nonfitting clothes, for whatever reason. 

"Maybe," Enoki muttered, not quite unearthing Indara, who seemed pleased to be surrounded by Enoki's clothes... for whatever reason. "How did I collect so many clothes, so quickly? I blame you." 

Tobi snorted. "Why?" 

"It implies that I went clothes shopping. Which I don't do." Enoki grumbled to himself, moving to pack everything back away. "When have you seen me out of uniform... before recently, that is?" He stopped, seeming to realize what he had said. "Wait, no, don't answer that." 

Tobi rolled his eyes. He knew exactly what Enoki was referencing, and he refused to contemplate it. If he did, he would get upset. Still, Enoki had a point. He wasn't the sort to run around out of uniform, and hadn't been since he was a brat. "I know you tried to have your personality removed, but they can't actually do that... You can wear something of mine, so you can stop digging uselessly through shirts that won't fit." 

Enoki pouted. "But I don't like your clothes..." 

" _You_ bought my clothes." 

"Yeah, for _you_." 

"Why would you have bought them for me, if _you_ didn't like them on some level?" he asked, growing frustrated. 

"Do you think we have the time to get into our issues?" Enoki asked, blinking innocently at him. 

...now Tobi felt paranoid, wondering just what he had been missing about his clothes. He had thought they were _nice_. "Unless you want to run around half bare, or wear something too tight, you're shit out of luck." 

Although he continued to grumble, Enoki gave in, and after some perusal picked the most drab shirt he could find... which wasn't all that drab, actually. It was as though, when he had gone shopping, he had gone out of his way to pick nice, almost flashy items in Tobi's size. Tobi had an inkling as to what was wrong with his wardrobe. 

After that, Nanashi called out that breakfast was done - with the double meaning of "overcooked to the point of being unrecognizable mush" - and Yuffie finally squalled out that she couldn't find the twins. Enoki arched an eyebrow at that, and silently pointed at the little boy still beneath the clothes he had yet to put away, while Tobi pointed directly at Asura, who was having difficulty backing out of the fox burrow. 

Tobi never did get around to asking why Enoki was suddenly a man again... 

* * *

OMAKE

Yuffie pulled her hat off to scrub at her "nearly bald" head. Nearly bald, because in the two months since her head had been shaved, her hair was starting to make a come back. Though she wore the hat as much as possible, in the off chance that Tobi might shave it off again if he saw it coming back as thick as it was. 

Their group was walking fairly close together this morning, and all she could see around her was grass, and the occasional grown-up or teenager butt. Like Ilfalna's, which was right in front of her face. Traveling was so boring. If she could see anything but grass, butts, and taller people's legs, she might think differently, but she couldn't, so she didn't. 

Not even eavesdropping on the grown-up conversations was that interesting, because Enoki - who was really cool, and not creepy at all... most of the time - was complaining about his guts, it sounded like. At least someone found what he was saying interesting, she thought, hearing Genkai-baachan's laughter. Yuffie didn't know what was so funny about cramps - she remembered getting one in her foot once, and she swears, she couldn't walk for days! - but old people were weird. 

"It's not like normal pain," Enoki complained. "I know how to handle that. It was more like... maa... sharp, stabbing pain, repeat, repeat, then sudden numbness. Alarming numbness. And I know that it was numbness, and not lack of pain, because there was still this horrible little tingle... Anyway, I thought that something had fallen off that wasn't supposed to..." While Yuffie shuddered, because it sounded awful, Genkai laughed harder than before, and Ilfalna, sweet, gentle Ilfalna, was starting to laugh too. "Yeah, yeah. Anyway, as soon as it was over - not a second before, because if I did, I would never have been able to escape the mocking, if only from myself - the very second I knew it was over, I had to wash up and turn back." 

Waaaait a second... Yuffie scowled at Ilfalna's behind. Were they talking about..? That thing that women do, that proves that they have Become a Woman... There was a big word for it, that she remembered her nanny using, but she couldn't quite remember what it was. Manifestation? Yeah, that had to be it. It sounded right. So that meant that Enoki had passed The Rites of Womanhood, and had Become a Woman. From the way he was talking about it, it sounded like some time this week. 

"All in all, I would rather not repeat the experience. It was disgusting and uncomfortable to varying degrees, and I'd really rather not have my body betray me like that..." 

"If it makes you feel better," said Genkai, "I mistook the problem for indigestion. It didn't occur to me that you could..." 

"Full transformation," Enoki replied, in that way he tended to whenever the validity of his female form was called into question. He sounded a little doleful, though. "And I quickly found myself wishing it wasn't..." As the conversation progressed to more boring plateaus, Yuffie returned to glaring at Ilfalna's butt. 

Two more days of this. Two more days... two... more...days... 

She was gonna die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If it wasn't obvious what was going on with Enoki... I'm sorry.


	10. Shopping in Kusa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first part of the shopping gets done...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for being slow. :) The worst part is, the chapter had been done the whole time... (I had to force myself to post it this weekend... *sigh*)

Kusagakure was boring, for a ninja village. That said a lot - namely, that it was about as exciting as a civilian port town, one of the busier ones. Cosmetically, it was a little different, but it was pretty much exactly the same as any other military town Nanashi had ever been to. There was the local flavor, the flair that said "This is _Kusa_ ", but... Nanashi had been in a lot of military towns over the years, and this one, no matter what the locals said, was nothing special. 

Tobi and Enoki seemed pleased to let him handle the horses, and he was glad. Those two seemed to have no idea what things were worth, and he suspected that if he let them, they would end up happily paying through the nose for medium quality nags. 

Little things like their casual disregard of money irked him. It was a facet of their contradictory nature that had him wondering just where they had come from, both in the physical sense, and in regards to social strata. He wanted to say Fire County, for both of them, but their accents had hints of other, more distant places - such as Iron Country, in Enoki's case, though he didn't have a samurai's bearing, and Water in Tobi's. 

They spoke the tongue of Fire Country like they were born to it... But so did most well bred nobility - it was widely considered the most civilized nation, being the birthplace of the shinobi's hidden villages. And that _would_ explain how they didn't seem to understand that a few hundred ryo was actually quite a bit. Though that would imply not only nobility, but higher, richer nobility. They _claimed_ to be shinobi, often enough. (Then they turned around, obviously lying through their teeth, and would say, "Not ninjas, remember?") While being shinobi would explain some of their habits, it wouldn't explain nearly enough. They certainly didn't behave like any ninja Nanashi had known. 

Yet, nothing but a ninja would have scars like they did. He saw Tobi's bare chest once, and even with all the things he had seen, he had to force himself not to flinch at the extent of the damage. The right arm, hell, the entire right side of his chest didn't even look real (and the scars on his face suggested that they weren't). Enoki had some interesting scars, himself, though they were nowhere near as extensive as Tobi's. Deep lines of puckered skin here and there, a spot where it was obvious that something had punched all the way through him, and a large, relatively clean, but still deep, X-shaped scar that crisscrossed his chest dead center. In short, they looked like they had been through a war or three. 

When he was young, he had seen old samurai with similar scars, but with the end of the Warring Clans period, the borders of the countries stabilized, and samurai weren't called to war as often anymore. Nanashi's own scars were proof that they were sometimes called to fight but... He was aware that the samurai era was long gone. It was a ninja's world now. 

With scars like those, as powerful as he was sure they were, he found it hard to believe that they weren't well known. As ninja, samurai, as anything. Scars like that came from a battlefield, they gained the recipient a name, when they survived. 

It seemed as though Nanashi was doomed to unfulfilled curiosity. But... it was nice, he supposed, having a puzzle to work over for as long as they traveled together. 

* * *

That was a big, beautiful looking horse that Nanashi was leading Tobi's way. The man tied it to a fence post a foot away from Tobi's perch and in the driest tone ever, Nanashi said, "Watch this guy for me, will you?" before heading back the way he came. 

Tobi turned his head, to see the horse was looking at him through lowered lashes. It's gaze was practically flirtatious. _Horses have weird looking eyes,_ he noted, as the large creature sidled toward him, sideways. It let out a soft nicker as it continued moving until its rump swung all the way around and leaned up against the fence, cornering Tobi in place. _This is a little weird..._ In spite of the position it had worked itself into, it still managed to give him an imploring look. 

It took a while for him to work out that it wanted some of his carrots, and by the time Nanashi came back, he and the animal were already fast friends. He'd forgotten how much he liked horses. "You didn't find any others?" he asked, mildly disappointed that Nanashi had come back empty-handed, if not alone. A short, balding man - probably a civilian, by the look of him - and a kunoichi accompanied him. 

The kunoichi was giving him a strange look, and Nanashi said, tone carefully level, "Tobi, that's not a riding horse." 

Tobi looked at the horse a little more closely. He personally wouldn't want to put a wagon harness on such a beautiful horse, but... "A cart horse?" 

"No. That's a stud. A very ill tempered stud. I'm afraid to ask, but... did you... drug the horse?" 

"No! That's horrible, coming out and accusing me of something like that with no proof!" As indignant as Tobi was, the kunoichi looked amused. 

"So you didn't drug the horse?" Nanashi asked. "Because I took this horse _out_ because it was interfering with selecting the ones I planned on buying, and if you did drug it..." He trailed off, in a vaguely threatening manner that was in no way effective. 

"No, I just shared my carrots, and scratched his muzzle. He seems to like me." Tobi patted at the horse's cheek as it lipped at his clothes in search of more carrots. Too bad for it, that there weren't any left. 

"And that," said Enoki, appearing rather suddenly (although he had probably been there for a few minutes waiting for an opportunity to say something sarcastic), "is as bad a sign as any. I'm sure you remember that one horse, don't you?" 

Tobi blinked, for a moment not quite sure what Enoki was talking about. Then he remembered - in academy, they had had horse riding classes, and there was this one horse, a gelding, that everyone said was mean. Supposedly, it was there for just that reason, to teach overconfident young proto-nin that sometimes the horse wins. The only problems Tobi had with it was that it took the instructors two hours and a jounin to get him down the first time he rode it. If he had the confidence to get down on his own, it would have been a lot easier. "Shitstain can't have been a bad horse - he just had an unfortunate name. With a bad horse, there wouldn't have been the threat of it pining to death because I didn't show up." He paused for a long moment, thinking. "What happened to him after I left?" 

"He pined to death," Enoki replied, cautiously poking at the horse still nibbling at Tobi's clothes. "We threw a party. Why do you think everyone called it 'Shitstain'? It wasn't because that was its real name. It was because everyone who was taught horse care using that horse hated it. You're the only one it liked." 

"That wasn't his real name?" Tobi had one of those internal moments, the kind where you realize that something fundamental in your life was a _dirty lie_ (it was of the particular variety that came in reference to one's childhood, and he hadn't realized that he could still have moments like that). "Why didn't anyone tell me?" 

Enoki shrugged. "Should get the stallion," he told Nanashi. "If it's half as bad as Shitstain, it can take down ninja of up to chuunin level. If nothing else, it can be a guard horse for his things, when he hares off without warning anyone." 

The kunoichi was just about dying of laughter, as the older man standing with her sighed heavily. "Are you sure?" 

"Yeah. Negotiate it with Nanashi, though. That's his job today." Turning to Tobi, Enoki gestured over his shoulder. "We found a wagon, but I left Genkai arguing with the seller. It has just about everything _I_ wanted, but if you want a say, you had better go and take a look at it before she finalizes the deal." 

* * *

"I hope you have more plans about what we're doing here beyond getting a wagon and some horses," Genkai said later, as he looked over the wagon. It wasn't pretty, but it was solidly designed, and with a little spit and polish, it would probably even look nice. 

In response, he dug his crumpled list out of a pocket, handing it to her without even trying to straighten it out. "Yeah, I was thinking about that before," he said, watching the twins crawl around the wagon's bed. "This needs some kind of padding," he decided, when one of them sat up and bumped his head. Something else occurred to him as well, considering the way that those two kept rushing around when they weren't sleeping. He should make sure they had their own nice, dark corner to sleep in... maybe a box. Babies liked boxes, right? He did when he was little. 

Genkai clucked over the list, even as she straightened it. "So you really were thinking, weren't you? I'm glad to see that you decided against kidnapping this time. That's not something that most people are very accepting of." 

"Kidnapping? Oh, right. Medic. No, I'm willing to pay for their services. I might end up having to brainwash them, though..." 

"That's... not a good response," she said, glaring. 

"He has a point," says Enoki, snagging the paper from her. "Depending on what they notice, it might be better to make sure they'll never tell. I'll take care of nonperishables. Tobi can go and find us cookware more suited to a group this size. If you don't mind hanging around the wagon, and helping Ilfalna with the babies?" 

"I can take them," Tobi volunteered - apparently because he was a glutton for punishment. But really. Since he was, technically, through some bizarre trick of ninjutsu, their father, he suspected that he really ought to spend more time with them. Before he could change his mind, the twins were attached to his shoulders like the limpits they were, and he was sent off to take care of his part - or one of his parts - of the necessary shopping.On the plus side, because of their ability with chakra manipulation, he didn't have to worry much about them falling, even if they fell asleep - and that had been an interesting discovery. He instead had to deal with them doing things like chewing and sucking on his shirt, grabbing his ears, pulling his hair, and various other things that he was already, more or less, used to. 

He couldn't believe he had let Enoki volunteer him for this part. There were four adults in their group, three teenaged boys, two teenaged girls - one of which was pregnant - and two prepubescent kids, two babies and a dog. He was also suspicious that they might manage to find, by accident or fate, someone else to add to the group sooner or later. He was aware that they needed something bigger to cook with, but he had no idea what, or how big. 

A pot big enough to hold one of the twins would probably be big enough to feed thirteen - soon enough to be fourteen - people and a dog, right? Determinedly, Tobi plucked Indara from his shoulder, and gently stuffed him in one of the larger pots at the merchant's stall. Not quite big enough, he thought, trying another and ignoring the merchant's stare. 

Little did he know what was running through said merchant's mind - something along the lines of, "That man looks like he's contemplating how easy it would be to cook a small child!" Undoubtedly, it was an alarming thought, and the merchant's face clearly showed it. 

"None of them seem big enough," Tobi muttered, blissfully unaware of the merchant's suspicion - well, he was aware that the man was giving him suspicious looks, though he didn't think he was doing anything particularly suspicious, nor was he feeling all that blissful, as the phrase implied. 

"What are you using it for?" the merchant asked, his tone quite suspicious. 

"Cooking for a large group," he replied, rolling his eyes. "There's thirteen of us, as is. None of these pots seem big enough... I figured Indara would be a good measurement." Tobi shrugged. "If the pot is big enough to fit him, it's probably big enough to feed the lot of us." 

"...Oh." 

Tobi blinked at him. "What, did you think I was planning to eat him?" 

The merchant didn't answer. 

"... You are a horrible person. I should know, because _I'm_ a horrible person." 

Twenty minutes later, he left the stall, more than happy with his purchases. Between a positively massive camp kettle, several other pots and pans that the word "massive" also described, he felt as though he had definitely succeeded at his original purpose. Most of the items were tucked away into a storage scroll, but he left the kettle out, Indara sitting in it to prove just how big it was, while Asura continued to cheerfully dangle from his shoulder. 

When he got back to the wagon, he was pleased to see that someone had already gone and gotten the calligraphy/fuinjutsu supplies on his list, as well a smattering of books that he figured was for the kids. Genkai gave the kettle a dubious look, and said, "If that's indicative of whatever else you got, I suspect that you shouldn't go shopping on your own again." 

"Say what you want, you could cook for an army with these pots and pans." Because damnit, he was going to be proud of finding a merchant who had stuff that size. 

"That's one big ass kettle," said Nanashi, looking nearly as dubious as Genkai had. "I had a commander once, who had one that size." 

Enoki returned much later, laden with storage scrolls, and he cast a similar look at the kettle. "This is why you don't have a fisherman milk the cow," he said. "Not that I have any room to talk. If I make fun of you, I would have to make fun of myself." He waved one of the scrolls in Tobi's direction. There was a single word written on the outside of it - rice. "We shouldn't have to shop for nonperishables any time soon. Even assuming things go the way they do." 

Those scrolls had a capacity of two hundred pounds each, and two of them were labeled as "spices". Who needed four hundred pounds of any kind of spice? Who needed two hundred of rice? There was one labeled "flour", another that was "beans", two said "oats", one said "barley", another was "hops" (was he planning to make beer?), "honey"... No, seriously, why would Enoki buy that much honey? Where did he get the necessary money for that much honey? He seemed to remember honey being expensive, even though he hadn't given himself the luxury of things like that in years, with the exception of trying to make himself look harmless (such as having dango while working with Deidara, who, contrarily, he missed). 

"You're ridiculous," he accused Enoki, once they had finished putting everything away. "I sort of get everything but the honey, and the spices. What's up with that?" Enoki just shrugged, giving him an enigmatic smile. This was going to bother him forever. More than Enoki's sudden return to masculinity had. Far more. (Because he didn't really want to think about the change, or what it entailed. Did it mean that Enoki wasn't interested in teasing him anymore? And if so, why did that bother Tobi?) 

* * *

They ended up in an inn, spread out across several rooms, while the Kusa-nin tried to figure out their game - because they really were a suspicious looking lot, and it was a surprise that the ninja who had tailed them on their way in hadn't decided to try to keep them out. The girls shared a room with Genkai, while the boys shared a room with Nanashi, and Tobi was stuck with Enoki and the twins - ostensibly because the twins probably wouldn't be bothered if they started arguing in the middle of the night, whereas almost anyone else would be. 

It wasn't as strange feeling, sleeping next to Enoki now. He was almost used to it, from the times they had done it since coming back. Almost. There was still a sort of buzz under his skin that urged him to either roll closer to Enoki, keep him warm and be warmed in return, or roll away and put his back to him. He didn't know which way to go, so he let Enoki's actions decide for him. More often than not, Enoki chose the former, throwing an arm and a leg over Tobi's tense body, until eventually, the warmth would lull him to sleep. Even while female, Enoki had continued, the same as usual, sprawling over Tobi almost as if he weren't even there. 

It was... comforting, in a strange way. When it kept him awake, he found himself treading old ground - the same mental paths each night. He had _Issues_ , and most of them came down to the same person who pretended to be a blanket every night. It was a boiling mix of anger and nostalgia, with healthy - or more likely unhealthy - dose of lust, to shake things up. They had never really been friends, and Tobi wasn't sure what their relationship was _now_ , but he didn't think "friends" was a good enough word. Even if it was the only word he had ("nakama", comrades, he _knew_ that that wasn't a good enough word, even if it was probably what Enoki would say). 

And _lust_... He wanted to say that was Enoki's fault. That stupid Oiroke jutsu of his. He wanted to say that's when it started. But it had been going on longer than that. Perhaps, if he had been free, if he hadn't been so tied up in rage and pain, lashing out at the world, egged on by a curse seal on his heart that he hadn't even known was there... In all his best dreams, it was him, Kakashi and Rin together, somehow, in their Konoha, but that dream was so far gone from being possible that the closest he could have now was not letting Enoki leave when he realized he should. 

Although, with Enoki sprawled, boneless in sleep over him, breath somehow soft and heavy and warm all at once in his ear... except for one glaring lack, one missing body, he would almost think that he was under the Infinite Tsukiyomi. 

But after all that time alone, the cursed puppet seal broken, it was almost enough. 

* * *

Enoki awoke, warm and languid and vaguely aroused, tangled in bedsheets with a warm, heavy body crushing him into the mattress. For a while, he was far too comfortable to move, even if his bedmate was drooling on him _and_ sporting morning wood. He could ignore the wetness against his neck - though he planned to mock Tobi mercilessly for it later. The erection... That was a debate for the ages. He wasn't sure if he wanted to ignore that. He also wasn't sure if he should _mock_ him for it (in spite of the fact that it would probably get a pretty good reaction, it wasn't like he had any room to talk). 

He wondered just what it was that was holding him back. Normally he would be pleased to lend a hand - he snickered to himself, too softly to disturb his companion - to a friend in need. _Oh, right,_ he remembered. All evidence - including Tobi's own words - pointed at him being a virgin, and that was... a turn-off, actually. Enoki generally didn't go for virgins, for a variety of reasons. 

There were all sorts of things that virgins usually didn't know, and in the end, it made them too much work. He preferred a partner with enough experience that _he_ didn't have to work. Why yes, he _was_ a lazy bottom. He was also opinionated enough that he had been told that _he_ was too much work. (That was a mental train he didn't want to get started on, because even now, years later, it still pissed him off. It had almost ruined his working relationship with Inoichi, whose wife - the two had had an open relationship through most of their marriage - actually thanked him for the "bad sex" lecture he had treated her husband to. If it weren't for the fact that even really bad sex can lead to pregnancy, he would have wondered how they managed to have Ino. Though he did wonder how the man's wife put up with it given that he had "gotten better" over the years between Ino's birth and their one off.) 

Then again, it was pretty hard for even a virgin to fuck up getting blown. Now, if he expected reciprocation, Tobi would almost definitely fuck it up (less by being a virgin, and more by being himself), but... He supposed that he would have to wait for Tobi to wake up before making a decision, either way. 

He dozed for a while, while Tobi breathed _wetly_ against his neck. Not damply, which is to be expected. Wetly. In all the wetness that implies. He gave it another month, if things like this continue, before he started pushing Tobi out of bed whenever they shared one. 

When Tobi finally woke up, he made a sound that was somewhere between a purr, a growl, and a confused groan, and wrapped his arms around Enoki's waist, burying his face in Enoki's throat. 

"It would be nice if you were this cuddly when you were awake," Enoki murmured, his voice still thick with sleep. Tobi grumbled, but didn't otherwise reply. Instead, he sighed deeply, and relaxed, as though getting ready to fall back asleep. "You fucker," he complained. "I was waiting for you to wake up." 

"Hmm?" Well, that was promising. 

"I was going to ask if you'd like me to blow you," he said, wincing a moment later, because judging by the way Tobi jerked awake, that was probably too blunt. 

"Did you say what I think you said?" Tobi asked, and thank God, he wasn't in a position to look Enoki in the eye. 

"That depends," Enoki replied, "on what you'd prefer I said." Because he could only do so much bluntness at once. 

Tobi made a strange little squeaky sound as he digested that. The fact that he wasn't moving away could be construed as a good sign, Enoki supposed. Or, he could be dying of mortification, and suffocating himself that very moment. It was hard to say. He pulled back, just enough to seek the eye contact that Enoki had been dreading, but stopped, his dark eyes having never lifted from Enoki's throat... What had been a faint flush and a questioning look changed dramatically as Tobi's cheeks turned crimson. "I..." His eyes flickered up to Enoki's, then back to his neck. "Uhm." 

"... So, I take that as 'no'?" Enoki asked, mildly disappointed. It had been more than three, almost four months since he's had sex, and the close body contact nearly every night was a horrible tease. And, yes he found Tobi attractive - he was solid and heavy in a way that felt damned good next to him, or under him, when he sprawled over him, or laying between his legs, like right now - and that only made sure that sex was on his mind often. (He also knew Tobi well enough to know that he was jealous of those who were important to him - and that Enoki fell into that category. Looking elsewhere for a one night stand could very easily get someone killed if Tobi got it into his head to be possessive. Considering that so far he has shown no inclination to part ways with him - and the twins - that looked more than likely. It was all very frustrating, when Enoki thought about it. Probably not healthy, either.) 

Tobi stared. "Uhm... what?" he asked, sounding harassed. 

Should he repeat himself? Did he actually need to say it again? Opting again for bluntness, he met Tobi's stare with an arched brow and said, "If you want, I'll blow you." Somehow, it wasn't a surprise when Tobi began to sputter. Loudly. Enoki let him spazz out for a moment - "You aren't supposed to just come out and say things like that!" - then gave Tobi a shove that toppled him over onto his back, and straddled his waist while he regained his equilibrium. Enoki licked his lips. "That's a yes or no question. It doesn't require the dramatics." 

* * *

OMAKE

It wasn't easy, seating nearly ten kids at a restaurant. The twins were as messy as expected, and if he didn't know better (and did he really?), Nanashi would suspect Yuffie and Kotaro were building some kind of launcher out of disposable chopsticks. The teenagers were mostly just _loud_ , loud in a way they wouldn't be if Tobi and Enoki were present. Nanashi wasn't sure if it was respect or fear, and he didn't really care which it was, he just wanted to eat his breakfast in something resembling peace. 

So he asked Kotaro to go and wake them up. When the boy came back, he said, "They're already awake, but they're _arguing_ already, so I didn't want to go in there." 

Remembering that poor bar in Tanzaku-gai, he turned to Genkai and said, "Twenty ryo on them fighting by the time I get up there." 

She laughed, and countered, "Twenty that they're fucking." 

Groans erupted around them from the teens - "You're old! You aren't supposed to say things like that!" - as Nanashi got up from the table, shoving half a boiled egg into his mouth. If nothing else, the short jaunt took him away from the noise. While Kotaro could be a pain, at times, he was ten times quieter when it was just the three of them, and he had spent most of his time talking to Tobimaru. 

The hall was suspiciously quiet, once he got there, and he contemplated the possibility that Kotaro was mistaken, but by the time he reached their door, he heard something. At first, it didn't click, what it was. But then there was a whining sound that he had a hard time believing a grown man could produce, followed by Enoki's voice, raw from abuse, "If you can't keep from pulling, keep your hands out of my hair." With a couple more grumbles - "You stopped to tell me that..?" "Behave, and it'll make things easier." - and the other sound resumed. Hard, heavy panting. 

Okay. Like Kotaro likely had done, Nanashi turned right back around, with a bemused look. If nothing else was to be taken away from this... 

He owed Genkai twenty ryo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating will go up next chapter. :)


	11. FINALLY

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where that wake up call went, and the day that follows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where the minor porn happens (major porn is later, and is a major porn in the ass... sorry, make that "pain"). Also, don't try this at home. (Sorry for taking so long, everyone. Between one thing and another, I haven't been able to make myself update. :!)

Enoki was serious. He was _serious_. The intent look in his eyes said as much. All he wanted was an answer, and then he would... he would... what, just slide right down and go to town? The weight of him across Tobi's hips was hot and pleasantly distracting as well, and that _offer_... A verbal reply would be mortifying. Almost as mortifying as finding out he had given Enoki a hickey while they slept. 

But the answer was... a tentative lick of his lips, and suddenly finding himself unable to meet that intense gaze. He _wanted_. He didn't know how to say it, but he _wanted_. Desire was a heated curl in his gut that he had never felt quite so strongly as right now. (There had been times where it had been close, though, and this frustrating man was almost always the reason for it.) 

As though that _was_ an answer, Enoki hummed. Glancing around the room with hooded eyes, he asked, "And the twins?" 

"Ilfalna snuck in and got them a couple hours ago." She had woken Tobi in the process, but he had gone right back to sleep, inwardly pleased at his and Enoki's change of position (though he vaguely recalled giving in to temptation and mouthing that pale neck as sleep reclaimed him). He sucked in a deep breath when Enoki hooked his fingers into the front of his yukata and dragged them down Tobi's chest and abdomen until they caught on the tie. He made quick work of the knot while Tobi's fingers clenched nervously in the sheets. 

Enoki smiled, leaning forward. "Oh? That's good." The yukata was brushed aside, and Enoki shifted to slide his body down between Tobi's legs. "Wouldn't want them to interrupt, hmm?" He began kissing Tobi's belly - gently, at first, then firmly when the muscles twitched at the overly light touch - carelessly over the area where scarred flesh met the implanted prosthetic and Tobi, mouth gaping silently at the unfamiliar sensation (curious little pulls from Enoki's mouth, the tickle of hair against his skin), almost missed the insistent tug on his pants. 

Right. He had to move, didn't he? Teeth nipped sharply at his abdomen, an admonishment for being so slow, and Tobi jerked into motion, lifting his hips just enough to push them down himself. Enoki breathed a little laugh against him, and another, harder one when Tobi went stiff as a board immediately after pushing his pants down as far as he could in one movement. "Don't laugh at me, bastard," Tobi complained. Were it not for a shortness of breath, he would have sounded sulky. 

"Sorry, sorry," Enoki laughed, completely insincere. His eyes crinkled at the corners, far too amused to look sexy. "If you weren't so ridiculous, I probably wouldn't." A warm hand on his cock had his irritated rebuttal fading into a soft groan, as his head fell back to land on a pillow that he had forgotten was even there. Enoki's mouth pressed against the more sensitive, natural (rough, scarred) flesh one more time, before moving further down. 

Why had he never taken time for things like this? Enoki hadn't even _moved his hand_ , and the feeling of it was nearly too much. A slight movement, a thumb sliding across the head, and Tobi gasped sharply at hot, wet pressure engulfing him. Heaven. It was heaven, and he couldn't stop the hand that flew down to grasp Enoki's hair - soft strands tangling around his fingers immediately - or his legs drawing up as his toes and spine curled. 

To his utter bafflement, Enoki pulled away almost immediately. Tobi opened his eyes, a protest on his lips and a whine in his throat at the loss, but when their eyes met, Enoki was glaring. "If you can't keep from pulling, keep your hands out of my hair," he said, his eyes narrowed. 

Tobi whimpered, but unclenched his hand and let it drop. "You stopped to tell me that..?" 

Enoki snorted and threw an arm across his abdomen to brace himself. "Behave, and it'll make things easier," he replied dryly, and this time, Tobi watched Enoki take his cock into his mouth. It felt just as good a second time - wet, heavenly heat surrounding him, and _sucking_ , God - or maybe better, since he was watching. Grey eyes glinted up at him from beneath pale lashes - in spite of Enoki's apparent ire, it was amusement, still, that he read in those eyes. 

While his left hand twitched against the sheets with the desire to fist in Enoki's hair again, Tobi shoved the right into his mouth, biting down. The bittersweet, almost medicinal, taste of the prosthetic was a good distraction from the pull of Enoki's mouth. He sucked in deep breaths around his hand, his legs tensing with the effort not to writhe. He suspected that if he moved, Enoki would pull away again to scold him. Or laugh. 

Enoki swallowed around him and lifted his head slightly, and somehow Tobi's hand found its way back into his hair. Instead of clenching his fingers, he pressed them against the back of Enoki's head, insistently trying to urge him forward again. It was so _good_. His breath caught in his throat when the other man pitched forward, the hand that had been at the base of his cock the entire time flashing out to catch himself, then gripping the sheets. He missed the choking sound, lost entirely to the feeling of that mouth surrounding most of his cock, when his hips stuttered forward. _So good_. Once. Twice. 

God, that felt... more than good. It was too much. Far too much. He couldn't... Tobi groaned around his fist, his eyes screwed up tight, other hand tense, fingers rigid and unbending, and holding Enoki's head down as he shuddered through his orgasm. 

Through the short-lived post-orgasmic haze, he could hear Enoki coughing, and was vaguely aware of him sitting up. A sudden pain bloomed in his side as Enoki pinched him, hard, and he tried to flinch away. "Asshole," Enoki grumbled, his voice hoarse as he coughed again. He jabbed Tobi a couple times, right above where he had pinched him, while glowering down at him. A strange look crossed his face - furrowed brows and a pinched look about his mouth - and he swallowed twice as he scrubbed at his chin. 

"What did I do?" he muttered, half-heartedly swatting the abusive hand away. 

"Do not..." Enoki paused, his expression starting to look like a form of confusion. He swallowed again. "...ever." He went back to glaring. "Do not ever do that again. If you hold me down like that again, I _will_ bite, and I won't even try to pull back." 

"Wha..?" Tobi frowned, not comprehending the threat immediately. Then he cringed. "Got it." But still... there was the "again" to wonder and worry about. 

While he was still cringing, Enoki's eyes turned sly, a look briefly ruined by him swallowing again. "Reciprocation," he said, and Tobi blinked at him. "I'm not going to ask for a blow job - God only knows how you'll fuck that up -" and he ignored Tobi's low growl (because a blow job didn't seem so complicated as that), "but I think... yeah. Your hand is good enough." 

He took Tobi's unresisting hand in one of his, as though he didn't expect him to know how to do _that_ , and leaned over Tobi, braced against his chest with his other arm. "Oh come on! How the hell do _you_ get laid with an attitude like that?" he grumbled, letting Enoki wrap their hands around his cock. If he weren't still fuzzy from his own orgasm, he was sure he'd be squirming with discomfort over that. 

"Some people appreciate bluntness," Enoki replied, biting his own lip as he manipulated their hands to his satisfaction before giving an experimental thrust into their combined grip. It felt _weird_ , holding someone else's cock like that, but... kinda nice, in a way, even if it was the wrong hand (sensation was rather dull, comparatively, on the entirety of his right side). "It's... ah... surprisingly appreciated among the..." His fingers tightened around Tobi's, thrusting again. A small sound, a whimper or a groan, caught in his throat, lengthening the pause between words. "...the shinobi of our age group." 

Tobi huffed, reaching up with his free hand to pull Enoki the rest of the way down for a kiss, deciding not to read anything into the fact that Enoki had taken his right hand for this. There were too many things that could mean. The taste of himself in Enoki's mouth made him nearly regret the decision, because it tasted too much like the pseudo-flesh of his prosthetic. 

"Tighter," Enoki murmured against his lips, and a moment later, he gasped, "not that tight!" He scooted back slightly, to look Tobi in the eye. "Don't tell me you never masturbate?" 

"Left hand," said Tobi, licking his lips. "Right isn't so good for it." Ignoring Enoki's hazily skeptical face and the unsteady motion of his hips and their hands, Tobi pulled him back down. Their lips barely brushed before he moved on, toward Enoki's throat and the mark he had noticed earlier. Enoki tilted his head to the side with an inviting hum when Tobi pressed an open mouthed kiss over the red mark. 

Enoki moaned aloud when he sucked at it cautiously. The sound was high and reedy, and his hand tightened around Tobi's. "Harder," he managed between breathy gasps. Not sure whether he meant his hand or his mouth, Tobi went with both, sucking passionately at Enoki's throat as his fingers tightened fractionally. He was rewarded with a sharp cry, and Enoki's hips stuttered to a stop, wet warmth streaking Tobi's belly in spurts. The other man remained still and hunched over Tobi for a long moment before slowly collapsing onto his own mess. 

Tobi squirmed under him, uncomfortable, embarrassed, and suffering from reawakening arousal. Also, mess. Semen. Squished between them. God, they really needed to bathe. Badly. Yet, for all Tobi's squirming, Enoki, at least, seemed unprepared to move. And Tobi... didn't know what to say. Enoki muttered something that sounded amused but was otherwise unintelligible, and let out a little laugh. _Well, I guess it's nice to know that_ someone _is perfectly comfortable with this,_ Tobi mused. "Bath," he stated firmly, after some internal debate. "Up. I'm not letting you glue yourself to me just because you don't want to move." 

For some reason, Enoki seemed to find that inordinately funny. Tobi was already fed up with being laughed at, thus shoved him from the bed... which, if anything, only had the other man laughing harder. 

He made sure to dump _all_ the blankets over Enoki's head before taking his affronted dignity to the bath. 

* * *

Enoki took pride in the scandalized looks the older kids gave him when he finally dragged himself to breakfast. He knew that it was mostly because of the hickey from hell Tobi had given him - hell, even Tobi was having a hard time looking straight at him. The man was like a teenager himself at times, so it wasn't much of a surprise. 

There was something to be said for having little shame (shame was saved for things like reading Icha Icha aloud in front of _Naruto_ , who was like a horrible mixture of his mother and a mini Minato, and he was quite sure he wouldn't want the boy to know _anything_ about his sex life). The quiet awkwardness was hardly a horrible price to pay for a decent orgasm. Only decent, but still, completely worth it; even a _decent_ orgasm was a pleasant way to start the day. He would have to remember about the right hand, though. It seemed that Tobi had given up some dexterity in return for strength, and he may have also given up some tactile sensitivity, too, what with the way he had been biting it. 

Then there was that taste... Although it was long gone, lost to morning ablutions, Enoki still found himself running his tongue over his teeth. It had been strange. Not bad strange, just... strange. Herbal, maybe, in a bitter sort of way, which was definitely weird, because it wasn't a very _human_ taste - not unless someone had been gorging on unhealthy amounts of strange things. And he found himself craving licorice. Which was weird, because he didn't particularly like licorice. 

Somehow, after muttering out loud about it - garnering a _look_ from Tobi that he didn't feel like guessing the reason for - it turned into this _thing_. When the kids scattered for the day, they all promised to look for him. He was only muttering. It wasn't like he was _asking_ for it. It wasn't like he _wanted_ it... except he sort of did, so he wouldn't complain. 

Hours later, he decided that apparently Kusa didn't believe in licorice (funny, because he would swear that they exported the stuff). Enoki wondered if the kids had given up already. Yuffie had had a pretty stubborn face, so he suspected that if any of them were still looking this late in the afternoon, she might be. As for him, he had given up. 

That was why, when he turned around and saw the jar - clearly labeled "licorice root" - he was more annoyed than anything else. He wasn't sure why the apocathary hadn't been one of the places he thought to check earlier. He _knew_ licorice had medicinal properties, though admittedly, he would be hard pressed say much about its uses. He had even had the medics force licorice teas down his throat more than once, never giving him quite the same reason. 

The old lady at the counter was giving him a leary look, but that was little surprise. The various shop keepers around the village had been giving him similar looks all day. Apparently they didn't like it when one customer bought most of their stock. "Maa, 'baachan, I don't suppose you know anyone who makes licorice candy?" he asked, setting various jars of this and that herb down onto the counter. He wasn't going to destroy her stock, and once she saw that, her expression became a little more friendly. 

"Not much call for it," she said, with a little smile. "But I tend to keep some for myself. I'll throw some in for a pittance." 

Enoki brightened up considerably. "Thank you, 'baachan." 

Soon, he went his merry way, a good sized rice paper parcel of homemade licorice candies tucked in amongst his other purchases. They were sticky and sweet, their flavor a tad too strong, but... Yeah, that was almost right. There was that faint, medicinal bitterness beneath the sugar and pervasive fragrance. 

He wasn't sure if he wanted to actually tell Tobi that he tasted like licorice (even if that wasn't _quite_ right, but it wasn't like he actually meant the candy, and he wasn't well enough versed in such things as to pin down what it really was). Even if he never did, it was something to chortle about whenever it came to mind. Of course, it also meant that licorice would probably forever make him think of sex. 

* * *

Throughout the day, it became more and more obvious that Tobi was avoiding him. By evening, it was getting ridiculous. He had seen him all of once, since breakfast, and that was only when Tobi let everyone know that they needed to be available in the morning - and although he didn't explicitly say so, Enoki knew that he had gotten around to hiring a medic-nin to give the party health check ups. While Kusa did have a regular hospital, they also seemed to have medic-nin who would make house calls. 

By bed time, Enoki was well and truly frustrated with the behavior, because that's when he realized that Tobi wasn't coming to bed. By the echo of his chakra - there was still some kind of nebulous connection between them, giving him a vague sense of Tobi's mental state - Tobi wasn't planning to sleep, either. 

He was acting like some fluttery maiden - and a civilian, besides! - whose purity had been defiled. What a dumbass. It was like he never really grew up at all - possible, now that he thought about it, and _that_ was a troubling thought. Still, after all Tobi had done before they came to the past, it was strange, thinking that he had anything left of innocence. 

Making matters worse, Enoki had allowed himself to get used to his company. He _liked_ having someone in bed with him, if he felt he could trust them while he slept. Being alone, when he was no longer used to it, was the worst - not that he was ever ask that used to it. His dogs, often enough, would sleep with him when he was alone for too long. The only thing that did him any good was having the twins with him. They were warm, but they were too tiny, like stuffed toys, and while Indara was content to curl up at his side, Asura latched onto his neck. Tightly. 

...he couldn't sleep like this. 

He couldn't. 

He couldn't sleep with that awful roiling in his gut - because depression and anxiety (problems that he had had all his life, in varying degrees), it seemed, waited for the worst times to attack - namely, when he was lonely. He couldn't even get up and go for a walk. In a civilian town, he would be able to do so, but in a ninja village? The Kusa-nin would hardly react well, and he didn't feel like causing trouble. 

God he wanted to go for a walk, though. His midnight rambles through Konoha were legendary. It didn't exactly clear his head, but... it was something to do until he actually had something legitimate to do. Although, if he went to Konoha now, the ninja there wouldn't react any better than the Kusa-nin. 

These thoughts weren't helping. He shouldn't actively think about the things he had lost - literally, at this point, everything - because it wouldn't help. The only people in the world who even _knew_ him - for a certain value of "knowing" - numbered twelve. Thirteen if he counted the dog. He should count the dog. Tobimaru was a good, smart dog. No replacement for Enoki's ninken, but still, he was a good dog. 

His ninken... Enoki reached out, and dug briefly among his things piled at the side of the bed until he found the small scroll he had used to summon them. He didn't need to look at it; the damage was engrained in his mind's eye, if he so much as though about it. It smelt faintly of ozone but more of char, though it would take a nose equal to his or an Inuzuka's to detect the scent of ozone on it. He held it to his chest as he continued mulling over things he couldn't do anything about. 

And some time later, he finally fell into a fitful sleep. 

* * *

Tobi slipped into the room through the window, frowning, but internally grateful, when Enoki didn't stir. Silently observing the other for a while, he wondered how Enoki could sleep with those tiny arms constricting around his neck. Then again, Enoki seemed to let the younger kids get away with all sorts of things. Choking him in his sleep probably didn't seem that awful. 

He reached out to pry the infant loose, but derailed briefly, his knuckles brushing the side of Enoki's face. Shaking his head, he returned to his original path. Carefully, Tobi pried Asura's arms away from Enoki's throat, only to have the baby turn around and latch tightly onto him. "You little brat," he grouched quietly, laying down next to Enoki. "I'm not going to let you kill him, even if you want to, you know that, don't you?" Even more quietly, "I need him." 

When Enoki stayed in the same position, not rolling toward him like usual, Tobi was disappointed. Also, feeling a little guilty. He could tell, earlier, that Enoki's mood had dropped severely, but... It wasn't like he knew how to fix it. Maybe, once upon a time, he would have known what to do. He probably would have, impulsively, hugged Enoki or something. 

...he used to be such a naïve brat. As if something so simple, so ordinary - something neither of them had gotten much of, in their lives - could actually fix anything. Or maybe he was just too fucked up anymore to actually reach out and do it. His old self may have been naïve, he may have been a brat... But at least back then, he had always seemed to know what he should do (and he'd had the guts to reach out to others). 

Now, it was all he could do, just being there. 

* * *

OMAKE

(Flashback - sort of...) 

Minato stared at the chuunin, and with all the patience he could muster, said, "So, you're telling me that _a horse_ took one of the academy students hostage?" He hadn't meant to say it so loudly, but Kakashi heard him anyway, and leveled a disbelieving look in the direction of the adults. "And you're certain it's not an enemy shinobi?" _And none of the instructors are capable of rescuing the kid?_ That didn't say good things about the teachers at the academy. 

The chuunin sweated under his stare - combined with little Kakashi's distressingly dubious look (the kid might only be eight years old, but he already had lot of experience psyching out older shinobi). "It's... ah... Well, it's 'Shitstain'." 

_What does that have to do with..?_ No, Minato remembered something about horse care classes that Kakashi had needed to attend. The boy had come back muttering that _that horse_ needed to be put down. For better or worse, Kakashi was interested now, and it was he who insisted that Minato go and "do the right thing". (Anyone who claimed Kakashi had no sense of humor was dead wrong. It was a twisted thing, but it was there, and Minato shuddered to think of all the times he had seen Kakashi and Kushina put their heads together... no, things like that never seemed to end well.) 

When he got there - Kakashi right on his heels - he saw something that he thought was fairly typical of a horse riding class. The horse seemed content to trot in a circle, while the small boy on its back held his seat with a tired, but determined face. It was obvious that he was still an amateur rider, but Minato didn't see what the trouble was... 

Until one of the chuunin present decided that it was safe to make another try for the kid. 

He wouldn't have expected an animal without proper nin-training to move so fast. It's hooves flashed out viciously, catching the chuunin in the shoulder, then it trotted away, the boy on its back clinging to the saddle, his eyes clenched shut. It was amazing that the kid could hold his seat - as poor as his posture was - when the horse acted out like that. 

"I told you it was an evil horse," said Kakashi, and Minato sighed. The chuunin who had last made a try for rescuing the boy in the arena shuffled back to his compatriots, one hand clenched against his arm. The glint of blood on his fingers was visible even at a distance. "Shouldn't you go help? That's why we're here, isn't it?" He put his hand on top of Kakashi's head, and the boy snorted. "Whatever." 

Minato let out another sigh. There were so many things wrong with this. If he did as asked... well, there went all his free time, because everyone having sticky problems would be coming to him for help. If he didn't... He glanced at the boy on the horse. He looked _tired_ , yes, but not like he was truly distressed. He would probably be fine. 

He made the mistake of glancing down, and saw Kakashi's expectant face. "You're supposed to be a good role model, right?" 

_You little shit..._ Another gusty sigh. "Fine, fine..." and he left Kakashi standing next to the fence. In a flash, he had retrieved the other boy and had set him down with his teachers. "This is the only time," he told the chuunin, as the boy under his arm adjusted his goggles. "I'm sure next time something like this happens, you'll go through official channels." 

"Can I go home now?" asked a small voice, and he looked down to see the boy's dark eyes, squinting wearily up at him. There was a pout on his round face. "I'm fine, jounin-san, so you can put me down now. If they taught me to fucking - 'scuse me - dismount before putting me on that one horse, it would have been fine! He liked me, didn't he?" 

One of the chuunin muttered, "That horse doesn't like anyone..." 

The boy stuck out his tongue. "He likes me!" he stated, before squirming loose. He was running before his feet even hit the ground. "Bye, jounin-san! Thanks again!" 

What a weird kid...

**Author's Note:**

> New: If anyone wants expansions on background details and the like, drop a line, and you might get an OMAKE based around the question (if it's an inspiring question) or at least a bit in the notes if it's something that I won't directly address in the fic.
> 
> So far, supporting characters are taken from:  
> Final Fantasy VII,  
> Yuu Yuu Hakusho,  
> Sword of the Stranger
> 
> (End notes are subject to change.)


End file.
